This was entirely predictable:
Alliance brass back Morton
Morton, Alliance share aim to unite the right in AlbertaJason Markusoff
The Edmonton Journal
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
EDMONTON - Ted Morton's Conservative leadership bid has attracted the support of an MLA from another party.
Paul Hinman, leader of the right-leaning Alberta Alliance, confirmed Tuesday he is urging party members to buy Tory memberships and help elect Morton as PC leader and Alberta's next premier.
"I just told him that it's critical to get you in as premier and I'll see what I can do to help," Hinman said.
Hinman and Morton praised their efforts as a unite-the-right fusion of like-minded conservatives, but drew harsh words from some Progressive Conservatives and from the Alliance's former leader.
"I think it's ridiculous," said Randy Thorsteinson, who formed and led the party from 2002 until last year, when Hinman took over.
"If Ted Morton supported what the Alberta Alliance did, he'd be a member of the Alliance. Ted Morton's a Tory, and I'm not a Tory."
But Morton has won praise from Hinman and party president John Murdoch because his platform mirrors several of their views, from strident opposition to same-sex marriage and support of private health care to creating an Alberta-only police force and pension plan.
Both men have committed to supporting the rookie MLA's leadership campaign.
On Tuesday, Murdoch drafted a letter he'll send to every Alliance member -- if party council approves -- saying Alliance members should become PC members and Morton should be their choice.
"We're not campaigning for Ted Morton," Murdoch said.
"We're campaigning for the Alliance party's platform."
"The realism is that the Alliance party is here to move the province towards more traditionally conservative values. However we do that, as long as it's legal, we'd be more than happy to do it."
Morton, a former University of Calgary political scientist, has stressed throughout the campaign that the PCs must stop bleeding support on the right flank.
He notes that 210,000 fewer voters picked the Tories in the 2004 election than in 2001. At the same time, Thorsteinson's upstart Alliance picked up 77,500 votes, helping Hinman win the Cardston-Taber-Warner riding and become the party's first elected MLA.
It's time to "bring them home," Morton said, and expressed hope the Alliance's top players will help him do that.
"I think if you do a job description of what's required of the next leader of our party, it's to reunite all conservatives into one party again," Morton said.
"And if I'm the person who can do that best, I think that at least on that issue it will help me."
He warned that if the "wrong person" replaces Premier Ralph Klein the Alliance's fortunes will improve.
"Instead of one Paul Hinman, there will be five or six."
...
Hinman said he supported Morton in 1997 when he campaigned successfully to become a senator-in-waiting, and the two have remained friends and ideological allies since they were both elected two years ago as MLAs from opposing parties.
"Even though Ted is what I'd consider a little weak on reducing taxes and reducing the size of government, he's no question the most conservative leader out there," Hinman said.
He said he and Murdoch have vowed not to become PC members themselves, though the Alliance party council has approved dual card-holders.
Thorsteinson, who once ran against Klein as Social Credit leader, said the Alliance should not abandon its mission to replace the Tories altogether.
"It's bewildering to me. I think the Progressive Conservatives are incapable of change, and the only way you can change Alberta is for a whole new party to come in and take over," he said.
"I think it's faulty logic on John and Paul's part."
jmarkusoff@thejournal.canwest.com
© The Edmonton Journal 2006
As the article points out, Morton has received a good deal of press coverage for his private member's bill on gay marriage - Bill 208. Bill 208 purports to provide some legislative protections to Alberta's marriage commissioners and teachers, in that they would be allowed to opt out from participation in refereeing gay marriage, or teaching about gay marriage in the classroom. Ted Morton is presently the Progressive Conservative MLA for Foothills-Rocky View, and is probably in the top three or four in terms of the current leadership race.
While Bill 208 does not purport to change the definition of marriage back to one man and one woman, social conservatives love it because it does create division and lends credence to the myth that there is a "gay agenda" to take over the schools and persecute Christians.
Morton has been quite brilliant in bringing this forward at the time he has. This issue has clearly motivated the social conservatives and ultra-religious to get active and join his campaign. His strategy here reminds me a bit of Karl Rove's cleverness in making sure some swing states had referendums on the traditional definition of marriage to coincide with the last Presidential election in the U.S. Those referenda were considered crucial in motivating the Christian conservative base to get out and vote - which naturally benefitted George W. Bush far more than John Kerry.
It is this same, hidden, underlying message of intolerance towards gays that Alberta Alliance members find so irresistible. They believe that Ted Morton is going to keep gays in their place, so they have decided to join a separate political party en masse and support it.
Make no mistake that this is the issue that is behind Paul Hinman's and John Murdoch's actions.
