Alberta Revolting: A 2015 Voters Guide 5
Guide to the Alberta Party
Official Name: Alberta Party Political Association
Known Aliases: The Greg Clark Party
Leader: Greg “Elbow” Clark
Seats in Legislature at Dissolution: 0 of 87 (0%)
Electoral Goal for Next Assembly: Calgary-Elbow (1.2%)
Ideology: Generic pro-Albertanism
Agenda: Surpass Saskatchewan Party as biggest store-branded political party in country
Party Motto: We Stand For Whatever Your Vision of Alberta Is.
Headquarters: Every square centimetre of Alberta is our HQ.
Everybody seems to have one of those moments when their standing in a Superstore and facing the dreadful prospect of shlepping another two boxes of Old Dutch potato chips to work as your half-assed contribution to yet another interminable potluck with your fellow drones. You realize you’ve already lost your free will and individuality and it didn’t even take any Borg implants. Resistance is futile.
But then you think, I could easily drop to a quarter-assed contribution and by the No-Name brand chips. You just have to survive the eye-assaulting presence of the yellow bag in your home until you return to your pointless occupation tomorrow.
The same thing sometimes happens when you’re standing in an Alberta polling booth, living out the twisted, not-very-funny political remake of Ground Hog Day, that has been Alberta’s reality for the last 4 decades.
You realize you just can’t make yourself half-ass it enough put a checkmark beside the name of your local riding’s interchangeable PC approved (and trained) clapping seal. You start casting about for an option with a level of ass effort below 50%. And then you see the Alberta Party, the generic store branded political party.
The only political name that could be less devoid of meaning would be something like ‘The Party Political Association.’
Ironically though the Alberta Party isn’t a sub-50% ass effort party although it’s marketing sure comes across that way. It’s a group of largely capable well-meaning would-be activists and politicians who would probably be Liberals if the standing of the Liberal brand in Alberta wasn’t lower than the standing of rats and cockroaches. It’s relentless dedication to middle-of-the-roadness and generic marketing are an attempt to break the logjam that’s allowed the PCs to run as if they were unopposed.
Based on the apparent facts on the ground prior to 2015, the Alberta Party has been constructed to provide the most logical answer to creating an alternative to the PCs.
Not a bad idea but, given the party’s relentless triangulation to keep them Tory-lite and far, far, far away from anything that even remotely resembles the left-wing caricatures the PC’s created has left them in a position where they generate about as much excitement as a glass of room temperature water.
Party leader Greg Clarke’s upgrade up himself with an impressive set of batteries (I can only assume stolen from the Energizer Bunny’s personal stash) has done a lot to overcome their less than inspiring ideology.
Bottom Line: if you’re originally from the planet Vulcan (not the town), the Alberta Party may have some appeal as the logical option. If your candidate is Greg Clarke or Laurie Blakeman, then they’re worth voting for as good people who should be in the Legislature.
