Forum Research Inc. of Toronto was back in the field yesterday doing another Friday night poll of Alberta voter intentions.

The questions asked by the poll, the weird way it asked them and their timing may all provide some insights into why Forum's surveys have consistently produced better results for the Wildrose Party than other public opinion polls by other pollsters.

Another squalid American-style push poll, which has all the hallmarks of a Wildrose Party operation, had telephones dingling in Alberta yesterday evening.

Meanwhile, yet another legitimate poll, this one released Thursday by Return on Insight, shows the Progressive Conservatives under Premier Alison Redford continue to hold a commanding lead among decided voters.

Quite possibly the results of the ROI poll and others like it explain the tactics being used in the push poll.

A push poll, as previously noted in this space, is a political campaigning technique in which a political party or interest group attempts to change the opinions of the people whom they contact by pretending to conduct a poll.

As predicted more than once in this space, a methodologically trustworthy public opinion poll has now been published that shows the Progressive Conservatives under Premier Alison Redford with the support of more than 50 per cent of the province's committed voters.

As argued here, even before the poll by Leger Marketing was reported in the Alberta media yesterday, numbers like this indicate the Redford Tories are on their way to another significant majority, as long as present trends continue.

Well, that's one strategy for establishing your polling credibility: If you come up with a poll that other pollsters, bloggers and the usual complainers dismiss as an outlier, do another one that says the same thing.

That's what Forum Research Inc. of Toronto did yesterday, publishing a poll of Alberta voters' intentions that shows the Alberta Progressive Conservatives under Premier Alison Redford unchanged from its survey last month at 38 per cent committed support.

Even with Alberta Premier Alison Redford in a mood to tarry just a little and not call an election until after her government has passed its first budget, only one centrist political party is likely to be in a position to challenge her in all 87 ridings come election day -- the New Democrats.

With 73 candidates already nominated, the Alberta NDP under Brian Mason will have no trouble going into the election with a full slate capable of confronting Redford's Progressive Conservative government from the left, while the Wildrose Party led by Danielle Smith takes them on with a full slate from the right.

Not only that, but the New Democrats will be the only Alberta party, including the government, with a leader who has actually led his or her party through an election.

With an election looming, it's nice to see that Alberta Party Leader Glenn Taylor has finally cleared the decks for action and is about to start campaigning seriously for the job of MLA in the West Yellowhead riding.

Toronto's National Post -- or, as I prefer to think of it, the National Pest -- states in its meta tags that it's "Canada's trusted source for national news, financial news, world news, blogging, twitter, tweets, opinion, vodcast, podcast, commentary, entertainment and sports." Really, it does!

Nothing in there about polls, though, so we're not going to get to report them to the Better Business Bureau, tonight anyway.

The two worst things that have happened to the Alberta Party are, in this order, Naheed Nenshi and Alison Redford.

This is not to say either the mayor of Calgary or the premier of Alberta is personally responsible for the Alberta Party's troubles.

On the contrary, a case can be made both support the goals of the political phenomenon that briefly captured the attention of Alberta's chattering classes -- that is, to encourage the rise of a government and economy that might be described, with apologies to Alexander Dubcek, as "capitalism with a human face."

Quick! What's the name of Alberta’s No. 2 political party based on popular support?

The Wildrose Party, right?

That's certainly what the headline implied in the Edmonton Journal on Friday -- "Elections Alberta arms for X day, when main battle will be on the right." And that's what the headlines in any Alberta publication would likely say. That's because that's been the party line among Alberta's mainstream media for months.