By Michael Taube, Calgary Herald
Published: September 22, 2009

Alberta politics just got more interesting last week. Wildrose Alliance interim leader Paul Hinman’s stunning victory in the Calgary-Glenmore byelection turned more than a few heads across Canada.

Sure, Hinman had excellent credentials. He’s a former MLA who barely lost his seat last year, and has led both the Alberta Alliance and Wildrose Alliance. But his unexpected win, coupled with PC candidate Diane Colley-Urquhart’s dismal third-place showing in what most observers thought was a safe Tory riding, means that Premier Ed Stelmach is on very shaky ground.

Stelmach has been a great disappointment to many Albertans for various reasons, including his poor management of the oilsands, the $6.9-billion provincial deficit, and wasteful spending in various budgets. Hence, the Wildrose Alliance has a real shot of not only challenging the PCs in key ridings, but also eventually knocking them off their lofty perch in due course.

The upcoming Wildrose Alliance leadership race has therefore increased sevenfold in terms of importance. If party members truly want their minor political outfit to evolve into a major political force, I have three simple words for you: Choose Danielle Smith.

Danielle is a bright, talented and media-savvy individual. She has strong experience in three important areas–think-tanks (Fraser Institute intern, Canadian Federation of Independent Business, director of Alberta affairs), politics (volunteer in numerous PC/Reform campaigns, Calgary school trustee), and media (former member of the Calgary Herald editorial board, Global Sunday TV host). Plus, she’s a lifelong Albertan who intimately understands the province and its residents.

Yet, there’s apparently some concern that Danielle, who is a libertarian and social moderate, would radically transform the Wildrose Alliance, turn off current and potential supporters, and cause the party to get clobbered in the next provincial election.

In my view, nothing could be further from the truth.

First, Danielle has worked with a diverse group of Albertans in politics, business and everyday life. She realizes that a successful political party is defined by the sum of its parts. You have to build relationships with people of different political stripes to win an election. In other words, all points of view matter.

Second, the leader’s views are, frankly, the leader’s views. It’s no big secret that a libertarian political party wouldn’t win an election in Alberta. But a libertarian leader working hand-in-hand with fiscal and social conservatives, classical liberals, independents and other libertarians could win. Danielle knows the right route to success.

Third, most Canadian libertarians are, just like conservatives, on the right of the political spectrum. Conservatives and libertarians don’t see eye to eye on all issues, but they do on many of them, including taxes, size of government, free enterprise, families, and the rights and freedoms of individuals.

As one of Danielle’s well-known supporters, Link Byfield, wrote, she strongly supports “basic civil rights –freedom of speech, freedom of conscience and religion, freedom of assembly and association, and security of property from government confiscation and devaluation.” He believes that if she restores these civil rights, “all of which have been badly eroded by governments over time, we ’social conservatives’ will be politically far ahead of where we are today, and so will everyone else.”

Danielle’s positions are therefore very similar to conservatives’–and to say otherwise is utter nonsense.

By all accounts, the other significant leadership candidate, chiropractor Mark Dyrholm, is a decent, hardworking individual. But his resume and political inexperience will simply not resonate with Alberta voters hungering for small “c” conservative values and political change.

In my opinion, Smith has the experience, knowledge and tools necessary to accomplish great things in Alberta. If the Wildrose Alliance selects her as leader on Oct. 17, they will come to see what Canadian conservative and libertarian intellectuals have long known about her.

Michael Taube Is A Former Speech Writer To Prime Minister Stephen Harper.