Rob Anderson is far from the most popular player in the political sandbox right now.

So when Wildrose’s former legislature quarterback tells the world this week he’s not running in the next election the news is greeted with another helping of unvarnished disgust.

On Wednesday, the vacationing Anderson says he is delivering his last words on the subject.

He starts with a bang.

Since he went back to being a Progressive Conservative MLA, Anderson says he’s got one death threat along with nasty and obscene phone calls and a chorus of ugly utterances casting him right next to the scum of the earth at the bottom of the barrel.

Police have come to the family home.

The threat by phone?

“Rob Anderson, where I’m from we take care of people like you with a knife to the bowels. You need to be knifed in your bowels. You don’t deserve to be alive.”

This was a couple days after the defection.

Anderson says the threat and other crap shovelled his way “certainly played a role in clinching my decision.”

It was, in Anderson’s words, “a major contributing factor” to bowing out of the next ballot battle, though he was “leaning very heavily in that direction” before the outrage exploded.

Under questioning, Anderson sticks to his story on why he vamoosed from the party he fought so hard to get into government.

He says his job was to get provincial politics back on track and that’s why he left the PCs under Unsteady Eddie Stelmach and joined Wildrose.

Now he feels the provincial government is back on track with Prentice so it’s back to the PCs for Anderson.

He says the Wildrose defectors “didn’t want to be opposition for the sake of opposition” and going around Alberta saying they were better than Prentice would be like peddling “a fairy tale” and “a piece of fiction.”

In fact, he says about a third of Wildrose voters are already planning to support Team Prentice and another third are taking a good look at coming on board.

That leaves about one-third definitely sticking to Wildrose. Using the 2012 election results, that’s just over 11% of Alberta voters.

In the Anderson crystal ball, Wildrose could soon be on life support.

The man from Airdrie figures people are peeved off with him and the others because “they get emotionally attached to their political parties almost like sports teams.”

“I’ve signed up with the rival team though I don’t think that’s the right way to look at it.”

He insists he and the others who crossed the floor to the PC side were in no way trying to score a plum post in Toryland.

This is where Anderson gets worked up.

“People can have all kinds of conspiracy theories. They can theorize we all have horns on our heads. They can theorize we did it for some nefarious personal reasons. The truth is that’s all bullcrap.

“We did it because it was the right thing to do. Period. Full stop.

“People who say this was for personal gain are out to lunch.”

Ouch.

“I wish people could see into my mind and heart.”

PREVIOUSLY:

Anderson says the byelection message was Albertans wanted to give Prentice a chance.

The Wildrose defectors watched the premier in the legislature and liked what they saw.

“He converted us,” says Anderson.

Talk of bringing over the Wildrosers didn’t get down to brass tacks until a couple weeks before the mid-December day when it all went down.

Anderson says a Wildrose MLA, but not him, was talking with someone in the premier’s office.

There was interest on both sides and they were off to the races.

Just before the defection was nailed down, Prentice spoke to Wildrose MLAs thinking of taking the plunge.

Anderson says Prentice’s pitch sealed the deal for him, especially when the premier asked why conservatives should be fighting conservatives for the entertainment of the left.

Why was everything hush-hush?

“I think that one is kind of self-evident from the reaction,” says Anderson.

“Some issues you can’t throw trial balloons on. Once the cat is out of the bag, it’s out of the bag.”

Where does that leave the rest of us?

If Prentice does not pan out as the Great Right Hope and the Wildrose doesn’t manage to survive beyond the next election, Alberta will once again have no conservative alternative.

Clear sailing for the PC Good Ship Lollipop.

Anderson is not bothered.

“The Wildrose was a conservative response to a not-conservative government,” says Anderson.

“I was the government’s biggest critic and if Jim Prentice has convinced me, maybe that should say something.”

And what if Wildrose had won that damn byelection in Calgary-West where they lost by just 306 votes?

“It’s unimportant now. We’re at where we’re at and we’re all behind Jim Prentice.”

rick.bell@sunmedia.ca