A Tory Landslide in Alberta?

Most of the media seems to be giving up on trying to stop the Stelmach victory. Of course it would never be called a tide or wave. Stelmach is not Obama! Even so, at least one predictress sees even more seats for the Conservatives:

"I feel like I'm really sticking my neck out, but I think they're going to gain seats," said Ms. Brown, projecting the next legislature will house 70 to 72 Tories.

The quote is from an article in the Globe and Mail reproduced below. An article in the National Post seems to grasp at straws noting that there are still a lot of undedcided and there may be a poor turnout that will hurt the Tories. Shouldn't the media be urging everyone to get out and vote! Hmm.. Maybe they don't like Stelmach!

VOTING DAY

Alberta sleepwalks through campaign
DAWN WALTON

March 3, 2008

CALGARY -- Few reporters tagged along during Progressive Conservative Leader Ed Stelmach's last dash through Calgary, the only place likely to dampen his party's easy claim to an 11th consecutive majority when Albertans go to the polls today.

Staffers were shocked Saturday when not a single television camera showed up for the leader's first public meeting with Tory hopeful and former "Scud Stud" Arthur Kent, who had lashed out at Mr. Stelmach for "talking down" to candidates, one of the few criticisms that roused voters who have otherwise been sleepwalking through the 28-day campaign.

Instead of complaining about being stood up at a campaign event, Mr. Kent gushed about Mr. Stelmach's visit to his riding - one of the few places where a Tory faces an uphill battle - and how the party has changed.

Alberta is oil-rich and debt-free, yet voters are uneasy with the pace of growth and are agitating for change. But when they cast their votes, Albertans are widely expected to also put aside their grievances and extend the Tory Party's 37-year hold on government on the belief that the party itself has changed.

Mr. Stelmach might well approach former premier Ralph Klein's "Ralph's World" feat of 2001, when the Tories captured 74 of the legislature's 83 seats, according to Janet Brown, a public opinion research consultant who has designed a seat-projection model that predicts election outcomes with uncanny accuracy.

When the legislature was dissolved last month, the Tories had 60 seats, the Liberals 16, the New Democrats four, and the Wildrose Alliance one. There was one Independent and one vacant seat.

During the 2004 election when frustration was simmering about Mr. Klein's leadership, Ms. Brown predicted every seat correctly except one - the contentious Edmonton riding where the Tory ultimately beat the Liberal by three votes.

"I feel like I'm really sticking my neck out, but I think they're going to gain seats," said Ms. Brown, projecting the next legislature will house 70 to 72 Tories.

Despite a climate of change, no big issues have emerged, the opposition parties have had little traction and a large number of voters - up to a quarter, according to some polls - are undecided.

Business has been brisk at some advance polls, but many observers are expecting a low turnout, perhaps even lower than the 2004 election when the so-called Kleinfeld campaign largely about nothing attracted a historic low of 44.7 per cent of eligible voters.

The electorate here tends to show displeasure by not voting rather than by voting against the governing party, which has some Tories worried that support could slip to the 50-seat range.

But Mr. Stelmach's main competition, Liberal Leader Kevin Taft, who has run a well-intentioned, but unremarkable campaign, is burdened by competing in a province where bashing Liberals is practically a sport.

"To stand up anywhere and say you're not a Conservative is taboo," said 57-year-old Susan Young, who lives in the central Alberta community of Lacombe. "I don't understand Albertans. Why is it that people can only vote one tiny part of the political spectrum?"