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“If it was somebody else trying to juggle all of these balls at once, surely they’d be dropping them,” said Matt Solberg, who worked several years in the office of Alberta’s opposition with the Wildrose party, and is now a director at the government-relations firm New West Public Affairs.

To his fans, Kenney is doing what must be done to get Alberta back on track, to get the province a “fair deal” from Ottawa, to stick up for its interests against a Trudeau government hostile to the oil and gas industry and overly deferential to Central Canadian priorities.

Of course, to his critics, Kenney is a career politician, disregarding the lessons of Alberta history, arrogantly consolidating his power and avoiding transparency in his government’s dealings.

Notley, who is now opposition leader, said, “As a political operative, he is very good at staying on message… even if he’s saying things that aren’t true.”

Nothing Kenney does, said Ana Curic, a former staffer who was Kenney’s chief of staff across two ministries in Ottawa, is by accident.

“Some politicians, it’s timing,” Curic said. “With Jason my experience has always been, it’s him and his skill, he’s very good at it.”

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Kenney is riding his current wave, it seems, on account of two main factors. The first is his talent as a politician and experience at two levels of government since he first entered politics in 1997 at age 29.

“I know that in things like Question Period and some of his press conferences, some people see him as coming off as cheeky or combative, but he’s actually, behind closed doors, he’s really good at building consensus and negotiating,” Curic said. “I think part of that to be honest is because he spent time in opposition so he knows what it’s like to try and convince the other guy to do something.”