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Jean may be more popular with metro Edmonton voters than Kenney. But that won’t much matter if a voting block of metro Calgary UCP members clinch Kenney’s leadership. Calgary is Kenney’s power base, not Jean’s. And those wildly disproportionate members numbers give Kenney a huge edge when UPC members — and members only — decide who their leader will be. There’s no regional weighting. It’s one member, one vote. And if the vast majority of those members come from outside of Edmonton, they’re the ones who’ll pick the first UCP leader.

Based on this week’s poll data, a Kenney win is exactly what Rachel Notley and the NDP should be hoping for.

The Think HQ/Metro poll resultssuggest Notley’s only hope of reelection would be to square off against Kenney. The UCP would likely still win — but under Kenney, they wouldn’t secure a single Edmonton seat. (A Kenney victory could also be good news for the Alberta Party and the Liberals, according to the Think HQ/Metro numbers, suggesting Red Tories would sooner bail on the UCP than support Kenney.)

But suppose Kenney did win — both his party leadership, and the next election?

There’s a very good chance Edmonton would be shut out of his government. That didn’t go so well for us back in 1993 when Ralph Klein had not one single person from Edmonton or metro Edmonton in his cabinet. With no one to fight for the capital region’s interests, Klein’s cuts ravaged the city.

That’s not exactly a politically moral or responsible reason for everyone in Edmonton to run out to buy a UCP membership. The party has not appealed to Edmontonians. Even the relatively popular Jean can’t sell many memberships here. That’s not an indictment of Edmonton voters. It’s an indictment of the UCP’s failure to appeal to moderate urban voters. And if the party decides it doesn’t need the capital region, if it decides to write off metro Edmonton voters, I think that’s a strategy that could backfire.

That said, if Edmontonians sit out the UCP leadership race, we’ll allow Albertans from elsewhere to determine our province’s political fate. And we’ll have to abide with what they decide.

psimons@postmedia.com

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