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It was some opener — Jason Kenney saying that the CCF, precursor to the NDP, was born in 1932 in the very room where PC leadership candidates debated Tuesday night.

That sent a ripple through the conservative crowd, especially when Kenney added that the NDP should meet its doom in the same downtown Royal Canadian Legion pub.

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But it won’t turn out to be the NDP that ends here — it could be the Progressive Conservative party of Alberta.

The problem for PC traditionalists is that the math doesn’t work. Two status quo candidates — Byron Nelson and Richard Starke — are running against one merger candidate, Jason Kenney.

This is indescribably stupid. How does it make sense, if your main goal is to preserve the party and use it to defeat the NDP, to split the leadership vote and literally hand the leadership to Kenney, who wants to form a new party out of the PCs and Wildrose?

The March vote could be a real contest if one of them quits. Otherwise, the party might as well give the keys to Kenney right now.