Nominations, nominations.
The Tories finally have a candidate in Calgary-Egmont. Jonathan Denis took the second nomination meeting the Tories have run in the constituency. Since Denis is said to have deep ties to the party, it's unlikely he'd be "Chandlered" by the party executive. This leaves one riding in the city of Calgary that doesn't have a Tory nominated. That riding is Calgary-Montrose, the riding of the so-called MIA-MLA Hung Pham. There is no meeting scheduled for the riding since there is a dispute between the local riding association and the provincial Progressive Conservative party.
As a precis of the dispute, back in 2003/2004 Gus Barron was vieing to replace Pham as the Tory candidate in the 2004 provincial eleciton. Barron was initially disqualified from even trying to run by the Pham controlled riding executive. So Barron sued the riding association. He won the initial court case, but lost on appeal. He also lost the ensuing nomination meeting as well. The court did however not award the riding association legal fees, so the riding association, and with it several members of the executive, were on the hook for about $130 000 in court costs. Several members of the Tory executive have had a lawyer place liens on their homes for some of the money. So the riding executive asked the provincial party to pony up the money. The provincial party told them no, they're on their own. So the Calgaary-Montrose PC riding association sued the provincial PC association. Well on Friday, a a judge ruled against the riding association. Since the riding executive have refused to schedule a nomination meeting unless the money issue was settled, this leaves the Tories without a candidate in Montrose.
Now Pham would like to run again, and it is believed that he'd run as an independent if there's no Tory nomination meeting. The problem for Pham is that if he ran as an independent, there's no guarantee that he'd win. I say this from my experience door knocking when I was running against him in the 2004 election. Virtually all the people who told me they were voting for Pham were voting for him because he was either a) the Tory candidate and so they had to vote for him or b) They had to vote for him because they wanted Ralph. Not one person said they liked him, and in fact the impression I got was they were holding their nose while they marked their X. This would imply that Pham would have an uphill battle as an independent as Tory voters may not want to vote for him now that he's not riding the party or Ralph Klein's coattails.
Of course the provincial executive could just appoint him as the candidate. That's allowed under most party constitutions for special circumstances such as riding associations not holding nomination meetings. This poses a problem for the party though. My feel from talking to various party insiders is that Pham is not well liked within the party. Given that his attendance in the Legislature would make a senator blush in shame and that his house got raided by police due to a municipal election fraud scandal, that's no wonder. If the party decides that this gives them the golden opportunity to be rid of the man, what happens next is the question? Does the party parachute in some loyalist to carry the banner or do they just let the riding go? Either option doesn't look good or advance the Alberta PC party's fortunes.
If they parachute someone in, there's the distinct possibility that they'd lose, with Tory voters being disillusioned by the process. Such a loss in a riding where they've routinely won with at least 50% of the vote would be a big hit to Tory prestige, not to mention the loss of a seat in what could be a close race. It's the same if they just leave the riding without a Tory. Loss of prestige for being unable to nominate a candidate in all 83 ridings, not good for a major party. It would also give the seat to the opposition. Of these two, parachuting someone in is the lesser of the two evils. This assumes, of course that the party doesn't just hold it's nose and appoint Pham as the candidate.
No matter what happens, Montrose is a wide open seat, if someone can get the vote out. Montrose has the lowest voter turnout in the country with an average of 25% of the voters turning up for whatever election happens to be going on. Pham won last election with just over 3000 votes with about 6000 people showing up to vote. This in a riding with over 24 000 eligible voters. Any candidate that can get 4000 people out to vote will win, regardless of who the Tory candidate is. The trick is to get people out to vote. Which reminds me of the saddest thing I heard time and time again when I was campaigning, the vast majority of people I met on the doorstep who said "I don't vote".