How Dumb Can they Be?

It appears, according to CBC and other media outlets, that during the 2017 campaign to elect a leader for the newly formed Albertan United Conservative Party, that there was some collusion amongst some of the candidates to ensure that Brian Jean lost to Jason Kenny. Quite simply the Kenny campaign team provided another candidate, Jeff Callaway, with resources that included " strategic political direction, media and debate talking points, speeches, videos, and attack advertisements" (1) all of which were designed to reduce votes for Brian Jean. Callaway had every intention of dropping out and indorsing Kenny. The RCMP have been asked by the office of Alberta's election commissioner to investigate further.

I, of course, am not an Albertan. Even if I was, who got elected to lead a provincial conservative party is perhaps none of my business, But I think how someone gets elected is everyone's business. If I had lived in Alberta and had participated in that leadership race by supporting Jeff Callaway, I would be bloody pissed off that he had not been serious about leading but rather only about ruining someone else's chance to lead. Whether or not it was illegal will debated by lawyers and pundits for some time. It is clear to me, however, that regardless of what is allowed by the United Conservative Party - that Kenny or at least his team's actions were just on the other side of being morally wrong. It was a gross manipulation of the public's perception done so that the crown prince of Canadian conservatives could be welcomed back to the Albertan political arena.

There is another issue that concerns me almost as much. That is - how stupid or arrogant are those who work in the backrooms of political parties? It seems to me that workers from the entire political spectrum send too many emails. Within those electronic exchanges, they share all kinds of information that while it may have seemed to be pertinent at the moment, and it may have been expedient to communicate via email - they have to know that someone, at some time, might examine their correspondence. They must realize - unless they are so arrogant to assume that they have the unfettered right to do whatever they want - that someone might see what they were doing was, at the very least, a little bit shady.

There may have been a time when people accepted that within the old boys club there were some strange bed partners. Partners who exchanged favours so that they could lead the assumed blind and ignorant public in whatever direction they (the politicians) wanted them to go. While that sort of thing clearly still happens, the public is hopefully less blind than it use to be. It is so much easier to find a record of potential wrongdoing. Part of me is quite delighted that they seem to be so full of themselves that they never think about the possibilities of having their emails flitting around the ether being read by unwelcome eyes- it makes it so much easier to watch them. It concerns me, however, because if those workers are the people who are doing the backroom manipulations and in fact creating the political environment and agenda are so unaware of how things work - how bright can they be? I think we need to have smarter people involved.

Side Point: the cynic in me wonders if it is an accident that this potentially damaging information about Jason Kenny is made public just months before the Alberta provincial election.

(1) https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/kenney-callaway-campaigns-collaborated-against-brian-jean-1.5059899