Ron Liepert is not laughing it off.

Yes, the idea of Mayor Nenshi running to be Progressive Conservative boss.

Nenshi hasn’t said he’s in the game. No one believes he will be in the game.

But Tuesday the most his people would say is he’s “probably not” in the race. They will not say No.

It’s like a person asking their spouse “Are you cheating on me?” and the spouse replies “Probably not.”

Probably not is not a No. The door is not slammed shut yet if only to have people talking.

A few Tories shock this page by not collapsing in rib-busting laughter at the thought of Nenshi as PC leader.

Their thinking? Big tax hikes, taking away a tax break, talking new taxes and a lot of Calgarians still love him. He’s obviously got some mojo we don’t have.

So goes the logic of this very small sampling of Toryland.

They crave for sizzle and victory.

We ask Rockin’ Ron Liepert what he thinks of Premier Nenshi.

“I wouldn’t rule him out. If there was some kind of a Draft Nenshi movement I wouldn’t rule him out at all,” says Liepert, who headed up the health, education and energy departments.

He was also budget boss in the early days of Redford.

But how would the Tories accept Nenshi?

“I think ultimately you want somebody who is going to win the next election. That doesn’t mean to say you whore yourself,” says Liepert, now running against Rob Anders for the federal Tory nod in Calgary Signal Hill.

“I don’t know the guy. But you know what, they’re going to be looking for a winner and he’s a winner. I would throw him in the mix.”

Liepert says Nenshi is “certainly not seen as a conservative” but many folks “absolutely like him.”

“How can you get more popular than he is? He’s got nowhere to go but down as mayor of Calgary. He’s smart enough to know that.”

“I’ve maintained well before the whole blow-up with Redford the wild card in the next provincial election was Nenshi.”

“I believed a year or so from now he was going to get bored being mayor of Calgary and he was going to tell Raj Sherman it’s time to move aside and he was going to take over the Liberal party.”

“And he would use the same six-month coast he used for mayor from zero to the mayor’s chair to zero to the premier’s chair.”

Liepert also wonders about former Calgary mayor Dave Bronconnier.

“Dave could slide right in there quite nicely. He could certainly raise the money. He’s got the profile. He’s young enough.”

“We’ll see something happen. What it is, I don’t know. Things are so fluid these days.”

“I don’t think we can write the obituary of the Progressive Conservative party yet.”

Before he leaves, Liepert adds both Ed Stelmach and Alison Redford spent too much time trying to please too many people to the left and too many people to the right of the middle of the political spectrum.

He says both former premiers made a lot of promises Tory MLAs hadn’t any say in making but had to go out and sell.

He advises anybody in the September ballot battle to promise little “and sell yourself as the best person to lead the party in the next election.”

You’ve heard of those Tory MLAs looking at jumping into the fray.

On Tuesday, Doug Horner, the province’s budget boss who came third in the last leadership fight and whose supporters put Redford over the top, apparently lost my phone number.

Reports say Horner doesn’t want to talk about a bid for the top job.

He’s going around Alberta scoring face time flogging the budget.

Meanwhile, Sen. Scott Tannas is pitched as an outsider.

High River’s Tannas, a very successful businessman whose dad was an MLA in the Ralph days, was elected as a Senator-in-waiting under the PC banner.

He was appointed to the Senate last year.

Tannas says running for leader wasn’t on his radar until this past Saturday. He says “a growing group feel an outsider needs to be there.”

He says it’s all about “a style of leadership as opposed to saying we’ve got some new brand of toothpaste we need to sell.”

“The public would like a fresh start and a reset button because this has gone wrong really fast.”

Tannas admits with each party change “you have a shrinking margin for error.”

There is the Wildrose. He calls them “a robust opposition.”

The story comes full circle.

“If you look at our supporters across the province we are Everyman,” says PC party prez Jim McCormick, turning poetic.

“We will be looking for a piece of Everyman in our leader.”

Easier said than done.

rick.bell@sunmedia.ca

On Twitter: @sunrickbell