This week the 2019 election campaign between the governing New Democratic Party and the Opposition United Conservative Party, between Premier Rachel Notley and Jason Kenney, begins in earnest.
On Thursday, Kenney will win the byelection in the safest conservative constituency in Alberta - Calgary Lougheed - the conservative centre of not just Alberta but Canada. Federal leaders Preston Manning and Stephen Harper, creators of contemporary Canadian conservatism, called this area of southwest Calgary their political home.
With Kenney in the legislature, the choice Alberta will make in 2019 between a conservative or a social democratic future, will start to take shape.
The riding is named for the icon of Alberta conservative power, Peter Lougheed.
The relentless Kenney machine, with its historically large financing and ruthless power is a can't-lose bet.
The byelection will show how wide a vote margin the NDP faces in south Calgary and throw some light on whether the government will hold onto the Calgary seats it won in 2015.
The unknown that will be illuminated is the question of a third option - do the Alberta Liberals represent an alternative to the two major parties that would come into play if the 2019 general election results in a minority government.
The leaderless and drifting Alberta Party opted not to field a candidate, a terrible strategic mistake that will not be easily overcome because it positions the party as a herd of malcontents with nothing cogent to say about economic and social issues central to the next election.
After two years spent unifying the Wildrose and Progressive Conservative parties, both Notley and Kenney must now stop preaching to their choirs of converted followers.
For 17 months, Kenney has directed his attention and messages to conservatives, to pull them into the unity tent, and has succeeded, the Tory rump in the Alberta Party notwithstanding.
In response, Notley, except for her pipeline misadventures, has focused and let her senior cabinet ministers focus on shoring up their NDP financial and voter base.
Now both leaders must address the wider Alberta, especially the politically unengaged and uninvolved majority of eligible voters who don't vote.
In a province deeply divided on values and on expectations for the future, Kenney and Notley need to reach over the social and mainstream media and talk directly to the people who will decide between them.
For those of us who think that faith is part of well-rounded political perspective and practice, reading Preston Manning's new book, Faith, Leadership and Public Life, is a to-do.
Those of us who have followed Preston's career as a self-described scout on the frontiers of Canadian politics, have been waiting for him to do a book on the faith-politics interface in his life and in the political arena.
This book is about the leadership lessons he learned from characters profiled in the Old and New Testaments such as Jesus, Moses, Esther, Daniel and David.
I have ordered my copy from Castle Quay Books.com and will review it in a column in January.
- Frank Dabbs is a veteran political and business journalist, and author who wrote a biography of Preston Manning.
