He finally says it and after he says it he looks relaxed.

“There’s no way Prentice has the moral authority to govern. The PCs do not have the moral authority to govern,” says Wildrose leader Brian Jean, while in Calgary.

“He talked about change but when he didn’t follow through with what he actually said how can you trust him? How can you trust somebody who says one thing and does another?”

“Albertans cannot trust another PC government.”

But the PCs picked Prentice as their messiah figure after the reign of the ultra-entitled Redford and the incompetence of Unsteady Eddie.

Prentice was supposed to be all about change from within and he pulled off some surface cosmetic work like selling the provincial government planes.

But the messiah didn’t work miracles with the tired insider club of Toryland.

Why didn’t it happen?

It is a question to ask Jean because he and Prentice both served on Harper’s side of the House of Commons.

They know each other.

These days one of the few things they can agree upon is they like the Cowboy Breakfast at Calgary’s Blackfoot Diner.

Jean speaks from no script this day.

“Because he’s not a man driven by principles. He’s a man driven by power.”

“He wants to be in power and he’ll do whatever he can to stay in power. He waffles. He goes back and forth. It depends on who is recommending what to him.”

Jean is now far away from the robotic repetition of talking points Albertans saw during the debate of the party leaders.

More on Prentice and the PCs.

“He has a pack of corruption following him everywhere he goes.”

On raising taxes instead of looking for more savings in the Alberta government’s day-to-day operating budget.

“He’s turning the problem over to taxpayers rather than taking the problem on himself,” says Jean.

“He doesn’t have the guts to tackle it.”

On Prentice and former Wildrose leader Danielle Smith and others conspiring to KO the official opposition, a move followed up by a quickie election.

“He wanted to crush the opposition. He wanted a huge majority to continue his plan of taking money out of the pockets of hard working Albertans,” says Jean.

“And after all the scandal, all the waste, all of the corruption, Jim Prentice and the PCs are asking Albertans to pay for the mismanagement and continuously giving their friends and cronies backroom deals.”

Jean vows to push for an independent audit of the government’s books to find where the dirt is located, to hold people responsible if possible, to fix the problem going forward.

The severance packages, the contracts handed out without a bidding process, the favours for cronies of the PC party, the ban on corporate and union donations.

The Wildrose and NDP don’t agree on taxes but they agree on cleaning up government and that’s more than Wildrose and the PCs agree on.

In fact, Jean says as much.

“What I fear most is a PC majority.”

Jean heads to his motorhome to head up to north Calgary and campaign with Wildrose candidate and former city cop Kathy Macdonald.

He is convinced PC mudslinging will not stick this time. He is convinced Albertans will not be conned again.

On Thursday, polls come out, all with the NDP in the lead, some showing Wildrose second, some the PCs second.

One nosecount, by well-respected ThinkHQ, finds folks more concerned about a PC win than a Wildrose or NDP victory.

Up in Edmonton, Prentice rallies the Tory troops, the defenders of the 44-year dynasty.

For the umpteenth time he plays the Ace of Fear against the NDP, who the PCs see as the Orange Menace.

Prentice’s task is simple to understand.

Do what the PCs do when they figure they’re in a fix.

They look at Albertans and calculate the best way to scare as many as they can back into line, to corral them back into the herd, to keep the political machine in power.

That’s what is important. Keep the political machine in power.

And so the script. Come back to the PCs, Albertans. We will defend free enterprise. No,we will do more. We will defend Alberta.

On Thursday the premier rouses his capital city crowd.

“I will act on the values of Edmontonians and Albertans. I will be accountable,” says Prentice.

The question. Do enough Albertans believe him?

rick.bell@sunmedia.ca