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Lewis’s response is extraordinary, even baffling, considering the company — he and the other men at the table are here for a Wildrose event, a speech from new leader Brian Jean: “There’s nothing wrong with a socialist government if it’s run right.”

The conversation reveals the emergence of a different kind of Alberta dynamic. Anger at the long-governing party has temporarily superseded the old war between the left and the right. Change is the prevailing ideology.

It goes back to the 2012 election, when the Tories almost lost but then won an unexpected majority after painting the opposition Wildrose as scarily socially conservative.

Now, after three years of Tory scandals — and the ruling party’s stunning annexation of most of the Wildrose caucus — the same anger, trapped and preserved in a sea bed, has been polished to a shine and brought out for show: This government is just not being run right. Lewis and his friends talk of big business pulling the strings, backroom deals, and dirty politics.

Premier Jim Prentice called this election on April 7 because, he said, he wanted a mandate for his budget. But the campaign isn’t following his script. It’s become about trust, and the fact that the Tories no longer enjoy it.

Tory voters are breaking to the NDP in unprecedented numbers, according to the polls. The sentiment is summed up perfectly by conservative gadfly Ezra Levant on Twitter: “No word of a lie, if my only choices were this dirty clique, or the NDP, hand to God I’d vote NDP.”