Elections in the Canadian province of Alberta where I live don't usually get much attention outside of its borders—or within, for that matter. As political pundits are often fond of saying, Albertans don't so much elect parties as anoint political dynasties: prior to last week's election, for example, the Progressive Conservative Party had ruled the province for 41 years, unmolested by much in the way of formal opposition or civic dissent. Where other regions tend to see a back-and-forth tug of war between parties, the pattern in Alberta has been to let a ruling party hunker down for decades, and topple it periodically in a mass voter stampede to a new, untested party which is then allowed to sit in power for another few decades.
But last week's election attracted a great deal of attention across Canada because it looked as if it would provoke one of those rare topplings of an Albertan dynasty. The challenger was the young Wildrose Party, whose meteoric rise on the political scene could be attributed to its charismatic leader Danielle Smith, to general disgruntlement over the PC Party's handling of health care and various ethical issues, and to the Wildrose's having poached several members of the governing party.
As always during an election, I keep an ear out for how language is being used. In this one, it turned out that the tussle over political rhetoric was as interesting as the struggle over the levers of power.
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