MAINSTREAM MEDIA ACTS SURPRISED

I was watching those fools Craig Oliver and Jane Taber over on CTV Question Period and they acted all surprised that Jim Dinning didn't take it all on the first ballot.

Well I knew for a long time that Dinning wasn't going to take it on the first ballot. Sure, he had a big organization and most of caucus behind him. But I knew for weeks that he was in for a fight, and if anyone had done their digging and read what real Conservatives were saying about the Alberta PC leadership race, they would have known about Ted Morton's strength and how well he was going to do. Clearly the guy had a big grassroots organization behind him, it was obvious just looking at his website! I heard all the buzz about him in the Alberta press. I had read a column by Paul Jackson in one of the papers, tipping me off to Morton's strength. And that was months ago.

I am a little surprised that it was Ed Stelmach who ended up finishing in third place, but he did extremely well in parts of rural Alberta, particularly up around Vegreville. Morton did even better in the rural areas. Both of them will be on the ballot next week in the preferential second ballot and you would have to think the rural vote is going to end up coalescing around one of these two in the final runoff against Dinning. You have to think a lot of these rural folks will rank Morton their number one choice and Stelmach their number two, and vice versa, just to stop Dinning.

Larry Johnsrude in the Edmonton Journal was blogging about it last night: there is clearly an urban-rural split going on in the Alberta PC party. But should anyone be surprised by that, either? Really, the rural areas of Alberta are just like the rural areas in Ontario in the sense that they are much more conservative than the big cities, particularly on social issues. The difference in Alberta is that the rural areas are way, way out there on the populist right, far more so than in Ontario. They're into western separatism, some of those people. Rural Alberta is so conservative that it is a joke.

I noticed when I was active in politics in Ontario that it seemed to be the more rural areas ( and the city of Ottawa) that handed Jim Flaherty the most votes when he ran for the provincial PC leadership. And he was touting himself as the true-conservative candidate in the races he ran. But he lost both times because the big cities and the far North went for moderates like Ernie Eves and John Tory. So I am not surprised the same thing is happening in Alberta. Jim Dinning is basically a Red Tory and Red Tories get their votes in the cities.

But Craig Oliver says he's surprised. Man, this guy needs to get out of the Ottawa city limits occasionally and see the rest of the country. Or read more newspapers.

UPDATE: Heard that Lyle Oberg has endorsed Stelmach. Dave Hancock is also endorsing Stelmach. Seems to be an attempt to try and get Stelmach to finish ahead of Morton on the next ballot; then maybe he picks up all of Morton's votes and stops Jim Dinning?