Hugh MacDonald may be the last Liberal left standing, but, by God, he is a Liberal!
MacDonald, 55, the famously hardworking MLA for the Edmonton-Goldbar riding, announced yesterday he is joining the not-very-crowded race for the leadership of the faltering Alberta Liberal Party.
Because of the party's tattered state after two and a half years under the indecisive hand of Leader David Swann, and the fact it is likely on the verge of the historic loss of its status as the party of Official Opposition to the Wildrose Alliance, its leadership does not seem like much of a prize.
One senses, consequently, that the ever-loyal, ever-Liberal MacDonald is stepping up to the proverbial plate out of a sense of duty to his party in tough times. The four-term MLA is unlikely to be driven by unrealistic ambition.
But this may give him a certain strength not possessed by the other two candidates -- Edmonton-Centre MLA Laurie Blakeman, another veteran Liberal MLA but one who has been willing to consider dancing with other parties, and Edmonton-Meadowlark MLA Raj Sherman, the mercurial former Tory perpetually at the centre of Alberta's never-ending health care crisis.
You see, at this point in its history, no leader is likely to revive the Alberta Liberals' battered fortunes. That goes even for one like MacDonald, who is not afraid of rolling up his sleeves and working hard, digging out embarrassing facts about the government, firing tough questions at cabinet and speaking up forcefully enough to be heard.
Alas, the party's brand is just too damaged with most Alberta voters, the historic tide is moving against it in Alberta as on the national stage, and too many of the Albertans who wish to cast a protest vote against the government see the far-right Wildrose Alliance as the place to do that.
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That said, if anyone among the Alberta Liberal candidates can ensure the party's survival after the leadership contest ends on Sept. 10, it seems to this observer that MacDonald would be the person who could do it.
This is because a peculiarity of the Liberal vote in Alberta is that while it is not very big, it is quite determined. This means that the 12 to 15 per cent of Albertans who are going to vote Liberal no matter what aren't particularly interested in casting ballots for the New Democratic Party on the left or the Conservatives or the Wildrose Alliance on the right. Or, come to that, for leaders who would consider alliances with any of them.
As for the fledgling Alberta Party -- wherever it sits in the political spectrum, if anywhere -- it is said here that Alberta's determined Liberal voters aren't very interested in voting for it either, no matter how assiduously its once-Liberal founders court their votes.
This suggests that the Alberta Liberals would have a better chance of survival under a true-blue (or, rather, true-red) Liberal like MacDonald than led by Blakeman, who has in the past talked of "collaboration" with the Alberta Party, or by Sherman, who is a one-issue candidate and a former Conservative who would likely also consider coalitions of convenience to boot.
MacDonald dismisses talk of collaboration with the Alberta Party or anyone else as "political footsie." This is music to the ears of Alberta's hard-core Liberal voters. "I certainly was not part of the party that wanted to dismantle the party and join another one," he told the Edmonton Journal yesterday. "I was a Liberal and I'm a loyal steadfast liberal."
The fact that Alberta's Liberal vote is nowadays concentrated in a few ridings in the Edmonton area also works for a leader like MacDonald, allowing him at least the faint hope of emerging from the next general election with a small but functional caucus.
Led by either of the others contenders, Alberta Liberals could very well come out of the next election with no seats at all as disgusted deep-red Liberal supporters simply stay home.
The irony is that while MacDonald may be the only politician who can save his party, if he does he will likely end up carrying the can for its diminished fortunes.
This post also appears on David Climenhaga's blog, Alberta Diary.
David, you wrote: "This means that the 12 to 15 per cent of Albertans who are going to vote Liberal no matter what aren't particularly interested in casting ballots for the New Democratic Party on the left..."
I think you're very much wrong about this as the winning vote for progressive cooperation in the last Liberal convention proved (and that, keeping in mind that the types who attend conventions who are usually the most loyal party members of all) that Liberals, more than any other political group in Alberta, are far more flexible and reasonable in their comprehension of how progressives might gain seats through various strategies, including strategic voting.
If I were you, I wouldn't be cheering Macdonald's hard-core stance against cooperation as positive and admirably "loyal," for if he is able to convince Liberals to stay as stalwart partisans while NDPers adhere rigidly to their party as well, we progressives in Alberta can all but forget about budging this province in any positive direction anytime soon.
Why NDPers take such delight in hating their fellow, fairly like-minded Alberta Liberals, is beyond those of us who believe that coalitions, cooperation, and teams working together are the only way forward in this province. It's tiresome to the extreme.
I meant to say "Why some NDPers seem to take such delight in ..."
For those New Democrats who want to see a quick end to the Alberta Liberals, Hugh Macdonald would be a dream come true. While he's a hard-working constituency MLA, he lacks charisma, sounds strange when he speaks publicly, sees conspiracies everywhere, and cannot imagine cooperation with anyone. That isn't what most Alberta Liberals appear to want. I canvassed for Linda Duncan in Hugh's provincial constituency and although I never asked any Duncan supporter if they supported her for partisan reasons, more than a few identified themselves as "solid Liberals." Several took Duncan signs nonetheless. The Liberal vote in the federal Strathcona riding has gone from about 13,000 in 2004 to just a bit over 1000 in 2011, a tiny fraction of the Liberal vote in the last provincial election in the areas covered by Edmonton Strathcona.
Those who remain "Liberals" in Alberta despite the unending attacks on the NEP and Trudeau are unlikely to be blue Liberals. Their preference for the NDP over the Tories federally when they decide that their candidate can't win--as they did both in Strathcona and Edmonton East--has become clear. The Liberal provincial convention in 2010 was filled with former NDPers plus left-leaning Liberals. While Macdonald leans left too, within the rather right-wing frame that constitutes Alberta politics, his anti-cooperation viewpoint is mostly shared by the smaller group of blue Liberals.
I'd rather see Blakeman or Sherman at the head of the Liberal party, people who recognize that the Liberals need to effect some sort of coalition with other progressive parties. On the other hand I suppose it's possible that the Liberals, in an orgy of loyalty to the one person in their party who never loses the faith and considers crossing over to the NDP or the Alberta Party or the Greens, and who never thinks about effecting a working alliance, however informal with other parties, might pull an upset and elect Macdonald.
If they do, their fate would be the opposite of what David Climenhaga suggests. They would be dead within weeks, almost a joke. That might make the task of those who support strategic voting in Alberta, like the Alberta Democratic Renewal Project, easier because they could write off the Liberals in most ridings. But I don't see why the Liberals would want to commit hari kari in an effort to make life easier for the centre-left generally in the province.