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Alberta conservatives just bought themselves a fantastic Calgary voter list for the 2019 provincial election. But they overpaid. It’s all they got for more than $1 million spent on Bill Smith’s failed mayoral campaign.

Conservatives also won a lesson, if they choose to hear it.

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Calgary may not be so easy for the United Conservative Party to win. Monday night showed that a clear majority of voters — 199,000 who voted for Naheed Nenshi — prefer moderate, centrist, non-partisan leadership.

If that’s the trend in Calgary, the UCP can count on it being twice as tough in left-of-centre Edmonton.

The details aren’t so simple, of course. Individuals had many reasons to vote for or against Nenshi and Smith. This election was a complex emotional ordeal.

But this election was partly a rejection of partisan money, resulting in another rebuff of conservative dominance in Calgary, every bit as dramatic as the 2015 blowout of conservative MLAs by the NDP.