Well that escalated quickly.

Polls indicate the Alberta Tory machine is sputtering.

Funny noises under the hood. It’s pulling to the left a little.

And the Tory messiah behind the wheel is looking a little frazzled cause his GPS keeps losing its signal.

Our premier was supposed to be Sure Thing Jim.

But just a few days in, Alberta is experiencing something weird and odd and terrifying.

A real election without a pre-ordained outcome.

(Note to voters: Relax. Not knowing who is going to win in advance is how this process is supposed to work. On election day, however, you may have to stay up past 7 p.m. to find out who won. Which may prove difficult for the hard-core Tory demographic.)

In the ThinkHQ Public Affairs poll, the Tories are in third place.

Third is not good. Third is not where they expected to be.

Now, the differences are within the margin of error and it’s a long election. Plus a staggering 58% of those folks say they’re open to changing their vote. That kind of voter volatility definitely means the outcome isn’t pre-ordained.

Tories are a little shell-shocked. The premier got peevish, started throwing around ‘extremist’ to describe his opponents till the NDP mocked him out of it with their Extremist of the Day feature on their website. (BTW: Kudos to the NDP under Rachel Notley for bringing funny back. I’d almost forgotten what smart, insurgent-style campaigning looked like.)

In case the Tories still don’t get it, here it is in little words: We. Don’t. Like. You.

ThinkHQ shows 72% of us think you’re arrogant and elitist.

And here’s why:

1. This is a Seinfeld election: Only reason it was called was to achieve crass, political advantage over opposition parties and that confirms to us there’s nothing a Tory won’t do to hang onto power. It’s sleazy and cynical and Albertans are starting to notice.

2. Albertans were morally repulsed by the Wildrose defections … not only by the defectors, but that the premier welcomed these individuals of arguably low moral character into his caucus. Their stench stuck to him … as it should.

3. And speaking of stench … Gordon Dirks. The ethics commissioner investigated after the education minister authorized more modular classrooms for his constituency.

While running in a byelection.

Which he won only narrowly.

The commissioner wrote: “It was a specific political issue that he used his office to resolve in his favour.”

Alas … not against the law.

And who wrote ethics policy for this province?

Oh yeah. Tories.

Kind of like letting junkies craft drug policy.

The Dirks’ case represents pork-barrel-sleazy-trough-diving-buy-votes-with-public-money politics at its worst. And it happened under Prentice’s watch.

And it happened with one of Prentice’s hand-picked, star candidates.

And it showed us that Alberta’s politics of filth are alive and well.

And legal.

Quick question for Wildrose and NDP. Why isn’t Dirks starring in your campaign commercials?

4. To quote Calgary’s own Mayor Naheed Nenshi: “… if we’re in a world where it’s difficult (for the provincial government) to find $200,000 to investigate the deaths of children in care, to then find $30 million to run an election, it’s a tough argument for me to make if I were in that shoe.”

Ow! That just had to leave a mark.

5. You promised to listen to us … and didn’t. You consulted Albertans on the budget. We told you we didn’t want a health-care premium and we wanted a hike to corporate income taxes.

What did we get? A health-care tax.

And the lawyer/banker who is our premier let his pin-striped-corner-office compatriots in corporate Calgary walk away unscathed.

To the surprise of … absolutely no one.

6. When it came to the current fiscal crisis, created by generational Tory mismanagement … Slick Jim Prentice told us to “look in the mirror.”

So I’m to blame? For trusting guys like you?

It was kind of like investing your money in the $100-million gold-mine Ponzi scheme run by Milo Brost and Gary Sorenson … and then having them tell you it’s your fault they stole your money.

But I listened to Slick Jim. I did what he said. I looked in the mirror. I’m a guy who has repeatedly voted PC in Alberta.

And you know who I saw looking back at me? A sap. A guy who’d been conned.

So thanks, Jim. Looking in the mirror turned into a useful exercise for me after all.

Wonder if you had the same effect on other people?​