Cabinet Shuffle: The Real News

The big news of the week in Alberta has been the cabinet shuffle. I haven't had too much to say about it because, well, really not too much has changed. Only 3 new faces in Cabinet (Jonathan Denis, Thomas Lukaszuk and Frank Oberle), and most of the moves seeemed to be the ripples caused by moving Liepert out of Health and Morton into Finance.

To my mind, the bigger news is that Morton has apparently been instructed to secure better terms for Alberta's participation in equalization:

"And, Ted has another mission. He is to show a little muscle around the Ottawa types and other provinces over how much coin Alberta gives up to the federal financial sinkhole.

“The premier has asked me to undertake negotiations and discussion with the federal government and the other provincial governments on this subject,” says Ted, who nine years ago, along with Stephen Harper and others, signed a letter calling on Alberta to take back power the province allows the feds to wield."

This is important because it signals that, for their political salvation, the Tories are looking to an old enemy: Ottawa. Today's editorial in the Edmonton Journal claims that this is foolish:

The best advice anyone could give Morton, however, could be: "Whatever you do, don't pick a fight over equalization with Ottawa."

Apart from the eye-rolling predictability of such a ploy, it would involve going head-to-head with fellow Conservative Stephen Harper, who is a) whole lot more secure in Albertans' affections than the provincial Tories, and b) not a man who responds well to being pushed around.

This is, simply put, wrong. I believe that it misunderstands something fundamental about Alberta's politics. The political culture of this province is strongly rooted in two things: a home-team mentality, and an alienation from the political centre of the country.

Perhaps the smartest thing Stelmach could do right now is to pick a fight with Ottawa. As long as he doesn't back down, it is an opportunity to establish himself as the defender of Alberta, fighting against the eastern creeps and bums who want our money. We can debate the merits of equalization until the proverbial cows come home, but this could be the beginning of a set piece of political theatre, and what better central figure is there than Ted Morton?

The Journal's editorialists aren't wrong: Stephen Harper almost certainly is more loved that Ed Stelmach throughout Alberta. But that's not the point. The enemy in this brewing fight isn't Stephen Harper, it is the Ottawa and Quebec that exists in the imagination of the Alberta electorate, sucking our money out of Alberta and spending it on gun registries and daycare.

Stelmach Delivers... uh... not much.

Earlier tonight, Premier Stelmach presented his address to the province, entitled "The Way Forward." I am really not sure what to make of it.

Its no secret that the Tories are in a precarious position. Two polls out in the last two weeks have shown what most with a solid political instinct would have guessed: support for the PCs has plummeted, while the Wildrose Alliance appears to be enjoying a period of ascendancy. Alberta's Progressive "Conservative" government is the highest spending provincial government in the country, and has made a number of questionable decisions: from the Royalty Review, to the Health Region amalgamation to giving themselves a massive raise right after the last election.

So what is a struggling government in Alberta to do? Well, if Eddie's sermon from the mount is any indication - record a video, and nothing else. The only new policy the government announced was a freeze on public sector management salaries, and it was nothing more than a 30 second passage near the very top. The entire 20 minute video became nothing more than an infomercial for the government.

Stelmach needed a game changer tonight. Instead, he continued to execute the same game plan (as much as one could say this government has one) the PC's have been playing since they were re-elected in 2008. The problem is not that the government can't communicate its message, the problem is that people hear the message and don't like it.

Really Jack?

All things considered... maybe this shouldn't be on your website anymore....

"The Conservative government survived a confidence test Friday morning – as expected – thanks to the support of MPs from the Bloc Québécois and NDP."

Glenmore: Changeout or Old Fashioned Switch

In my last post, I shared a few preliminary thoughts about Monday's by election in Calgary-Glenmore.

On Monday, Paul Hinman won 37% of the vote, a staggering increase from the 8.1% won by the Wild Rose Alliance's candidate in 2008 (Ryan Sadler, for those who are keeping track). The obvious question is, where did these votes come from?

Today, I'd like to consider 3 hypothetical scenarios to answer this question.

The first, and I think least likely, is that the Wildrose votes came from voters who supported the Alberta Liberals in 2008. Given that the Wildrose Alliance is a right wing party, and the Alberta Liberals are a more centrist or left wing party, such a scenario would require the assumption that Liberal voters in 2008 were non-ideological, and their vote for the Wildrose Alliance on Monday was equally non-ideological. In essence, it assumes that those voting Alberta Liberal in 2008 were essentially casting a protest vote against the governing Progressive Conservatives, and then shifted their vote of protest to the Wildrose Alliance. Given the fact that the Alberta Liberal vote total did not change substantially (both in terms of absolute votes and percentage), this scenario seems unlikely.

The second scenario is that those who, in 2008, may have held their nose and voted PC - either because they liked Ron Stevens or because Ed Stelmach hadn't yet lost their support entirely - moved their support to the Wildrose Alliance. The sharp decline of the PC vote between March 2008 and Monday's by election lends this scenario some substantial support, but there is one final possibility.

It is also possible that a substantial group of 2008 PC voters simply chose not to vote, effectively choosing none of the above. In this scenario, Wildrose voters in the by election come from the ranks of the sixty odd percent who did not cast a ballot in 2008. In effect, PC voters may have disengaged from the process, while the Wildrose Alliance provided an outlet for voters who were previously disengaged from provincial politics.

So which scenario is correct? I would suspect that the simplest answer - that PC voters switched their vote to the Wildrose Alliance - is correct, however I am hoping to investigate this further in the coming days by looking at the poll by poll results, and plan a final post in the coming days.

The Return (Also: Glenmore and the Wildrose Alliance)

No one has asked me to return to blogging, but after a summer long break, I'm back. But I am neither bigger, nor particularly better.

I thought that for my first post back, I'd provide some preliminary thoughts on the Calgary Glenmore byelection. I haven't had a chance to really sit down with the numbers and figure out what they mean, but some things stand out even with a cursory examination of the top level results.

First, some facts. In 2008, Avalon Roberts scored 4213 votes, or 33% for the Alberta Liberals. Ron Stevens won 6436 votes, or 51% for the Tories, while Ryan Sadler garnered 8% (1025 votes) for the Wild Rose Alliance. Turnout was 41.3%.

In yesterday's by election, turnout was approximately the same as in 2008, at 40.5%. This is nothing short of astonishing for a by election. Roberts won 34% with 3776 votes, Paul Hinman scored 4052 votes for 37% for the Wild Rose Alliance, and Colley-Urquhart rounded out the top 3 with 26% or 2863 votes.

In the coming days, I intend to do a closer, poll by poll analysis of the results, but in the meantime, I think it is possible to make a few observations. Although the ALP vote total dropped 437 votes, turnout also dropped and Roberts' proportion of the vote remained substantially the same. The Wildrose Alliance vote, which increased by 29% and 2751 votes, appears to have come mostly from former supporters of Ron Stevens and the Conservative Party.

Obviously, the devil is in the details, and it will take a closer analysis of the poll by poll results to tell what really happened (such an analysis should follow in the next week or so). In the meantime, we can construct two different, although substantially similar, versions of what happened yesterday in Glenmore. Over the next couple of days, I'll write on each of these scenarios.

Is it a *real* revolution?

In no way do I mean to downplay the very, very large significance of what is happening in Iran, however, it almost certainly is not a revolution, at least as far as the word is construed in world of political theory.

Revolutions are, in the scheme of history, very very rare things, and incidents of revolution can be counted on one hand - French, Chinese, Russian, Iranian and - for some - American. There are a handful of others that might be considered revolutions, depending on who you talk to.

What distinguishes a "true" revolution from a popular uprising or widespread movement? A revolution is aimed at regime change. By regime, I am not speaking in the popular sense; that is, I am not referring to a government. In the west, the word regime is a loaded term, often used to refer to a government or a leader that the west feels lacks legitimacy (consider: the Iraqi "regime" led by Saddam Hussein). However, properly used, regime has a very specific meaning. It refers to the various modes, orders and institutions of that a state uses to govern itself.

I have been paying a great deal of attention to what's going on in Iran, and I do not see that what the Iranians want is regime change, in the narrow and proper sense defined above.

The righteous anger of Mousavi's supporters is directed at Ahmadinejad and Khameni not as representatives of the Iranian governing institutions, but for the crimes they have perpetrated as individuals. The leader of the protesters, Mousavi, is a reformer, but he is not a revolutionary leader. Mousavi does not have as his aim full scale regime change, and he is not aiming to deconstruct and then rebuild the Iranian state. Mousavi is a creature of the Iranian state with a long history of supporting the current regime.

Mousavi, then, is not a revolutionary leader in the strict and proper sense of the word. He is not aiming to remake the Iranian regime. He is aiming to control the Iranian regime.

What is happening in Iran is not a revolution in the proper sense of the word. It is best described as a popular uprising. If Mousavi and his supporters are successful - and I hope they are - I do not think that we are likely to see a full scale reconstruction of the Iranian state.

All of this being said, I do believe the potential exists for a truly revolutionary movement to arise. There is no question that Ahmadinejad and Khameni have precipitated a wider crisis of legitimacy in the Iranian state. If Mousavi were to become radicalized, he could become a revolutionary leader; or a leader who is a true revolutionary could arise. It remains to be seen, however, if such a leader would have a wide following in the Iranian population. It is certainly possible given the crisis the Iranian state finds itself facing.

From TehranBureau.com

From the Tehran Bureau website:

Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran: Article 27 [Freedom of Assembly] states that “Public gatherings and marches may be freely held, provided arms are not carried and that they are not detrimental to the fundamental principles of Islam.

h/t Lede

Sidenote: As usual, CBC Newsworld the soundtrack to my day (ah the life of a student). I'd really like to thank them for the following insightful commentary: "Life in Tehran isn't what is used to be." That really put the whole situation in focus for me. I'd like to commend Newsworld for providing insight and context.