If we take the assessment of this Alberta blogger seriously, and we should, a victory for Jim Dinning in the Alberta Tory leadership race would significantly reduce the field of policy choice for actual conservatives in Alberta.

The argument is fleshed out from comparing the political inclinations of Dinning and Kevin Taft, the leader of the Alberta Liberal Party and Leader of the Opposition. On the one hand, the writer sees Taft as a conservative in Liberal clothing, a Liberal of convenience.

Taft really is a Red Tory, and he’s only with the Alberta Liberals because he didn’t like Klein and his methods too much.

Conversely, the writer sees Jim Dinning as the flip side of Taft; that is, a liberal in Conservative garb:

For now, a new and reformed Progressive Conservative Party under Dinning is the closest we’ll get to a small-l liberal government in Alberta at this point in time.

“For now” and “at this point in time” could not be more emphatic a redundancy in the perceived liberal imperative, but the message is clear: Dinning and Taft are very much alike, and the implications of that suggestion are very significant for Albertans –especially for Alberta Tories searching for a new leader. To say that Dinning and Taft are a kind of a reversible garment is to say that you could wear it on both sides, and only the outer appearances would change. But the essence is that it would be the same garment. Most observant pairs of eyes, however, usually can spot the reversible nature of such garments –which is why people refer to Dinning as the Paul Martin (or is it the John Kerry) of Alberta politics. Reversing the jacket or flip-flopping the pancake convey the same message.

Do Alberta Tories want absence of principle masked as flexibility? Albertans have consistently rejected what the Liberal contingents have been selling in the province since 1921, and my guess is that they are not prepared to buy it now any more now than they were just 2 years ago. Albertans do want change. Our writer is right about that; just not that kind of change.

In the final analysis, Tory members better beware. If the author’s insight into the nature of the two Alberta politicians is correct, Jim Dinning’s role in this leadership contest is no different than that of Nancy Betkowski’s was in 1992 –a Liberal in Conservative garb. As it has been persuasively argued, a vote for Dinning is easily a vote for the reverse side as Kevin Taft.

It is significant that among the three front runners in the present Tory leadership race (Morton, Olberg and Dinning) only Dinning will not unreservedly commit to saying that he will stay and serve Albertans even if he does not win the leadership. That’ s what Nancy Betkowski did, only to return in a new Liberal political incarnation as MacBeth (hands washed and all) years later.

Perhaps our perceptive writer is unwittingly foreseeing a murky future. If Taft and Dinning are political twins, in future, it would make much more sense for Dinning, like MacBeth before him, to go after Taft’s job. Not Ralph’s.

Next time?