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Jason Kenney entered the United Conservative Party leadership race as a man without policies.

Sticking rigidly to his “grassroots guarantee,” a pledge that all policy would be democratically decided by the party’s members rather than imposed by the leader, Kenney left himself open to time-honoured accusations of a “secret agenda.”

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That guarantee, though, was a political gambit designed to help shed the image of an out-of-touch interloper from Ottawa. Up against Brian Jean, who was undeniably in touch with the conservative grassroots and who appeared comfortable in jeans in a way most politicians aren’t, Kenney had little choice.

But he is not by any stretch of the imagination a blank policy slate.

It may be unfair to call him an ideologue — a word with a sinister undercurrent — but he certainly has an ideology. In the Alberta legislature, both sides hurl accusations of ideological thinking back and forth. Sometimes the details aren’t even mentioned — simply subscribing to an ideology, any ideology, is an insult.