Harper didn’t just win by uniting the right, however. He did something else, too. For a decade, Chretien defeated conservatives by highlighting every boneheaded, xenophobic utterance by (mostly) Reform Party MPs and candidates. Harper watched this and learned, too.
As soon as he won his new party’s leadership in 2004, Harper started moving out the Reform troglodytes who had become associated with anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti-aboriginal and anti-abortion themes.

Quietly, and sometimes not-so-quietly, Harper expelled the extremists who had been a proverbial albatross around the neck of the federal conservative movement for a decade.

Once he’d cleaned house, Canadians gave him the keys to 24 Sussex. Simple.
Danielle Smith, the former TV talking head now propped atop the Alberta Wildrose Alliance Party, should have heeded Harper’s lesson. When she had a chance to do so, Smith could have expelled the far-right lunatics who now make up a sizeable segment of her candidates.  

She didn’t. As a result, she had a week filled with stories about Wildrose craziness:
– Edmonton Wildrose candidate Allan Hunsberger declared public education is “godless,” and that gays will burn in “a lake of fire” in hell.

– Calgary Wildrose candidate Ron Leech said he’s a better candidate than non-white candidates because he’s “Caucasian.”

– Barrhead Wildrose candidate Link Byfield achieved fame by publishing a magazine that published anti-Semitic articles about “Jewish-owned” businesses and a fictional Jew tax (leading to a complaint by Sun News host Ezra Levant).

– Wildrose’s platform wants to kill a section of the Alberta Human Rights Act that prohibits posting of signs like “no blacks” and “no Jews” for employment or lodging or service.

Unlike Harper, when asked about each of these things, Danielle Smith has shrugged. Instead of condemning the nuttiness in her party, she has defended it.

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It’s cold and rainy, but I’m here with Son One, Two and Three, plus two big labs. It’s perfect.

One downer: gas cap was off the boat when we got to it. Could someone have actually siphoned out gas? Sad, if that’s what happened.

Anyway. Board and card games await! Have a good one.

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1. All political parties attract their fair share of idiots and extremists.

2. It happens on both Right and Left.

3. When the media or the public bring idiocy/extremism in your ranks to your attention, you shouldn’t defend it.

4. You should condemn it and, when serious, kick the idiots/extremists out.

5. Danielle Smith doesn’t do that. She hasn’t done that.

6. That says something important about her, and her judgment.

7. Idiots and extremists come and go. Leaders don’t as much.

8. Get it?

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Alberta voters, apparently, have a different view. Wildrose has got wasted vote in rural areas; the PCs have vote where it matters most, on the seat count.

The final weekend in Alberta will be like the final weekend, federally, in 2004.  No less than Tom Flanagan has written about how that turned out.

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Right here.

(But, whatever you do, National Post’s Jen Gerson, don’t cover that!)

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Jen Gerson thinks it’s “fear mongering” to take a look at the public record of Wildrose extremists, such as the one who has called for David Suzuki’s murder.  That’s a quote: “fear mongering.”  It’s not “actual reporting,” says Gerson.  Her bosses at the National Post, who have done exemplary work on Alberta-based neo-Nazi activity recently, may feel differently.  Who knows.

Fortunately, the Calgary Herald believes in providing voters with, you know, information and actual reporting:

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…the same Wildrose delegate, Richard Evans, who mocks Holocaust victims, and promotes the neo-Nazi Stormfront web site.

Here’s an exchange between Evans and Kate MacMillan of Small Dead Animals, who you can learn more about here.

So, a new question for Danielle Smith: why do you associate with someone who openly counsels murder of political opponents?

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…we may well win it, too.  It’ll be interesting, next week:

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My daughter loves them, so do I.  So we went to a sold-out all ages show at the fabbo Parts and Labour on Queen West this week, and the Cancer Bats were epic in their god-like genius.  Epic. Saw one guy punch a hole in the ceiling when this tune from the new album (out this week!) was played.  Best band in Canada. Awesome.

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Not too good, I think, but perhaps you have a different take.

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