The profile after Alison Redford’s surprise victory is a little dated, but the ideas still apply.
“It wasn’t the narrative most political pundits—or, for that matter, Carter himself—expected. After all, he had recently helped parachute a thirty-eight-year-old Muslim policy wonk named Naheed Nenshi into the mayor’s office in Calgary; as if that weren’t enough, he then put a conspicuously progressive Conservative, Redford, in charge of the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party. How hard could it be to win a general election in a province where a ham sandwich bearing the PC banner would still be the automatic favourite? Very hard, as it turned out, although on election day Albertans renewed, albeit reluctantly, the Tories’ lease on power for at least one more term. “