For three months, Rona Ambrose was the Conservative leadership candidate who mattered most.
Undeclared and undecided while she counted the cost of returning to public life, Rona’s commanding presence set the standard of entry to the race for all would-be contestants.
It still does, although she said last week she would not enter the list of men and women who will seek the Conservative leadership in June.
Rona Ambrose is a conservative by conviction and a moderate who values the merits of an argument more highly than its ideology.
She bridges the gap that divides social and fiscal conservatives.
She is comfortably fluent in both official languages and navigates the social and cultural differences of the regions that make up the Canadian confederation.
What stands out most is that she is a leader of political vision.
However, she is happy to be back in Alberta in private business. Last summer she married her partner J. P. Veitch.
Those commitments forestall a bid to lead the federal Conservative Party and the nation.
It is reassuring that Rona “is not an infant, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of politics and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their self-interested scheming,” to paraphrase the New Testament.
The opportunity for Rona to re-enter federal politics is improbable.
The Conservative Party will move on, the alignment of the political planets will change, and the next national Conservative leader may be in that position for a decade.
In 2030, when the next Conservative leadership campaign is expected, Rona will be honoured and respected as a party stateswoman, but not seen as the leader.
However, there is another political opportunity for her.
After the next provincial election in the spring of 2023, Alberta Conservatives may be hunting for a new leader and a vision.
Jason Kenney is downsizing the province with an uncompromising, ideologically-driven agenda.
If he balances the budget, what will be left the of public education and health care that he is dismembering and demolishing?
The fossil fuel industry, its jobs and taxes are not coming back.
A future wallowing in alienation is pathetic.
I can count on one hand the Albertans who can provide the leadership this tidal change demands.
Or maybe just one finger – Rona Ambrose.
Last week, Pierre Poilievre, the six-term Ottawa Carleton MP and political Energizer Bunny, also quit the federal Conservative leadership campaign.
The prize now defaults to Peter Mackay, the second-generation Nova Scotia MP who, with Stephen Harper, co-founded the party.
There is a pack of dwarfs and egos also who have declared or are considering and clamouring for news media attention. The pack shrinks or expands almost daily. A candidacy requires a deposit of $200,000 and 3,000 endorsing signatures from 30 electoral districts in seven provinces.
On the Feb. 29 deadline for entry, we’ll know whether or not Peter MacKay has a serious rival.
Frank Dabbs is a veteran business and political journalist and author.
