Alberta Health Minister Fred Horne's musings he just might join Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty in declaring war on physicians' fees is proof the chickens continue to come home to roost for those foolish enough to assume the polls were right and the Wildrose Party would win the April 23 Alberta election.

It was journalists, bloggers, pollsters and certain far-right politicians who had to eat crow instead of chicken after last month's epic polling fail, but it may turn out as the henhouse dust settles it was another class of customer entirely who really has to pay for this historic miscalculation.

Brian Mulroney's success in leading the Progressive Conservative Party to a second majority victory in the general election of 1988 was the last hurrah of the old Conservative Party, the party whose lineage extended back to the great days of the Liberal Conservatives of the 19th century, under the leadership of Sir John A. Macdonald. It is ironic that the party's final electoral victory was in aid of the implementation of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement that had been negotiated between the Mulroney government and the Reagan Administration.

Later today, Alberta Premier Alison Redford will announce whom she has picked to fill her cabinet.

As a consequence, today is almost certain to be the start of a disappointment for the thousands of Alberta teachers, health care workers, union members, soccer moms and other progressive citizens who cast their ballots strategically, some might say foolishly, for the premier's Progressive Conservative Party on April 23.

They did it, of course, largely to keep the far-right Wildrose Party out of power, and in that they succeeded. But many also acted in the naïve hope Redford really offered a genuinely progressive alternative.

All things being equal, if Alison Redford's party had merely emerged from the April 23 Alberta election with 61 seats and Danielle Smith's with 17, plenty of Progressive Conservatives would be calling for the premier's head and the Wildrose leader would have been hailed as the toast of the town.

In other words, before the campaign had run its course, for many Tories anything less than 72 seats the party won in 2008 would have been seen as failure, and for many Wildrosers, since the campaign went the way it did, anything less than the majority they expected is bound to be.

Whatever went wrong with those notorious pre-election Alberta public opinion polls, it's not, as many pollsters now appear to be trying to persuade us, the fault of voters for changing their minds too quickly for our serious and scientific opinion trackers to keep up.

For weeks they told us with unshakeable confidence the far-right Wildrose Party was a deadbolt cinch to win a huge majority in Tuesday's Alberta election and bring the 41-year-old Conservative government to a humiliating end. In the event, the Tories under Premier Alison Redford did quite nicely, thank you very much.

'Tis late and the CBC's pancake makeup weighs heavy on your blogger's face. As all the world must surely know by now, Alberta Premier Alison Redford's hole card turned out to be an ace yesterday and Alberta's 41-year Progressive Conservative dynasty will live a little longer, perhaps a lot longer.

So today there is no joy in Mudville -- whether that place is located in the town of Okotoks, site of the world's largest glacial erratic, or at 24 Sussex Drive -- for the Mighty Flanagan has struck out. You can almost hear the disgruntled Wildrosers chanting "45 years is enough!"

As Albertans head to the polls today with large numbers of voters obviously in a mood for change and the media telling us a Wildrose majority is unstoppable, Progressive Conservative Premier Alison Redford may have only one good card left.

If her hole card turns out to be an ace, it'll be because of the caution of the significant number of Albertans and their families who work for and with this government, its agencies and the many groups and businesses that depend on it to survive.

A political party can score points by gratuitously attacking such people -- as the Wildrose attack on "big government" without question has through this campaign, notwithstanding the party's too-cute claim to recognize the value of "front-line" government employees.

"Social conscience" and human rights issues continue to dominate the final days of the 2012 Alberta election campaign as the governing Progressive Conservatives and other actors try to derail the front-running Wildrose Party juggernaut.

But whether this emphasis on the 19th Century attitudes of some Wildrose candidates and party Leader Danielle Smith's unwillingness to do or say anything meaningful about them are hindering the party's seemingly unstoppable march to victory on Monday or actually helping it is not clear.

If you have any doubts left there are only four more sleeps before the end of the Progressive Conservative Era in Alberta, look no further than the video and website called "I never thought I'd vote PC."

Whether or not the PCs under Alison Redford had anything to do with this vain effort to encourage hip, edgy young people to vote for the clapped out Conservative party in a last-ditch effort to prevent a Wildrose Apocalypse, there could be no surer sign of the imminent demise of the once mighty Tory dynasty.