All across Alberta it was "Super Saturday" yesterday and throughout the province members of the eternally ruling Progressive Conservative Party were being nominated to run in the looming general election!

Oh wow! Oh, Holy Cow… Guess what's going to be all over the news today!

With election fever gripping the province and the far-right Wildrose Party facing the bleak prospect of a do-or-die election campaign from a weaker position than it has faced since soon after its generously financed and publicized creation, a real rift on Alberta's historically unified conservative right is opening up.

Whether the divide grows bitter and deep enough to become a meaningful advantage to more progressive Alberta political parties remains to be seen. Ironically, for that to happen, centrist parties like the New Democrats and the Alberta Liberals need to wish the Wildrose Party a modest degree of success in 2012.

Civilization as we know it in Alberta has ended.

Ken Kowalski, 66, is stepping down. The Speaker of the Alberta Legislature and its longest-serving MLA -- "the dean of the Legislature," in Press Gallery-speak -- made the announcement yesterday morning in a news release that looked as if he'd typed it up himself late at night on his home computer.

Now that Alison Redford has been safely sworn in as Alberta's first woman premier, the fun can really begin.

The gloves can come off -- if they were ever on -- and the Wildrose Party can plumb the depths of neo-Con/neo-Lib attack advertising.

The rest of us will get to see if Premier Redford can sustain the toughness and focus, not to mention hang onto the good luck, that marked her leadership campaign.

Yesterday was Budget Day at the Alberta Legislature: "…it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity … we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way." You get the general idea.

Budget speeches may lack brass bands, artillery salutes and the bemedalled presence of the Lieutenant-Governor, but, no less than the opening of the Legislature two days before, an Alberta Budget Speech is pure Kabuki theatre -- everybody has a role to play, and everybody plays it pretty much the same way.

It was mildly entertaining yesterday afternoon to listen to Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach and his sometime Finance Minister Ted Morton twist themselves like pretzels at an afternoon news conference where they claimed there are no major disagreements about anything within Progressive Conservative ranks.

Oh, really!

This is what is known to people who are cynical about public life as "politics as usual."