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I very much appreciate that many Wildrose and PC members are conservative. But the leadership seems determined to fight the right within their party at least as vigorously as the left outside it.

The leadership seems determined to fight the right within their party at least as vigorously as the left outside it

As my colleague Colby Cosh has noted, the only thing they’ve managed to articulate so far is that they’d get rid of the carbon tax, that is, fight an ominous deficit by reducing revenue. (And as I have pointed out elsewhere, it is political and intellectual suicide to say climate change is real and doom looms but we can’t be bothered fighting it because gas would cost more. Timid, greedy and feeble is no way to go through life … or an election.)

If you think I’m being unfair, hysterical or otherwise principled, ask Kenney and Jean what I went around asking Canadian “conservative” politicians 20 years ago to no avail. What is the government doing that it should just stop? If they have no answer, they aren’t conservatives. They’re just shallow partisans whose rhetoric becomes ever more shrill as their beliefs become ever more elusive.

Of course some people say all this spending is vital, for its immediate impact or because it will “stimulate” the economy. But if you believe that, (a) you will believe anything, and (b) you’re in the wrong party. There is already a party in Alberta that believes the state spends your money better than you do, including the borrowed stuff. And it’s in power, avoiding all that tedious mucking about winning an election.

Seriously. If you believe in big government and despise social conservatives as troglodytes, why aren’t you in the NDP? And if you don’t, why sound and act like them?

It would be very odd to unite the “right” only to bury it all under one rock.

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