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It’s a reasonable enough assumption, given the history and character of the province. But politics isn’t rock ‘n roll, where fractured bands can reunite for a new life playing old hits. Mostly, in politics, when you’re done you’re done: Social Credit, the Reform party, United Farmers of Canada, Bloc Québécois (which may not accept it’s dead yet, although the corpse has started to smell). Stephen Harper’s success in crafting the Conservative Party of Canada out of the bits and pieces of Reform, the Alliance and the moribund PCs is the exception that stands out, and even after nine years in power there were doubters that it would survive.

It's a truism of Canadian politics. People can be bought with their own money

So it’s no given that Alberta’s United Conservatives will manage to reclaim all the best offices at the legislature in Edmonton come 2019. Though Notley’s approval rating is a dismal 28 per cent, polls taken in the middle of a term don’t mean a lot. Few thought Stephen Harper would run such a poor campaign in 2015 and hand his majority to Justin Trudeau; few thought Christy Clark would defeat the British Columbia New Democrats in 2013, and then bumble away her government in 2017; few thought Alberta was capable of electing an NDP government in the first place; few thought any U.S. candidate could possibly lose an election to Donald Trump.

“Progressive” politics is based on a fundamental belief in the power of applied spending: once people start getting the cheques, the subsidies, the services and the benefits that borrowed money can buy, they learn to lose their fear of debt and deficits. They may oppose them in principle, but in practice they don’t want the river of money to dry up. Ottawa and Ontario are already deep into denial about the dangers they’re running by eternally putting off the price of their profligacy. There’s no guarantee Albertans will be any different in the end.

People can be bought with their own money. It’s a truism of Canadian politics. Albertans have resisted in the past, but Notley has two more years to get them used to it. Many Canadians still think of Alberta as a conservative province that’s been hijacked by the NDP. A second Tory loss would force a fundamental reconsideration of that belief.

National Post