From left to right: Dave Cournoyer, Natalie Pon and Yours Truly, immediately after recording the Daveberta Podcast on Sunday (Photo: Adam Rozenhart, using my phone).

It’s time for something completely different: a podcast!

Don’t worry, it’s not mine. We’re not about to start podcasting here at AlbertaPolitics.ca, where old-timey newspaper columns that have a beginning, a middle, an end, and usually make a fairly strong point are our thing.

Alberta Party Leader Stephen Mandel bloviates recently while once and future (?) party leader Greg Clark looks on (Photo: David J. Climenhaga).

Normally at this blog we strive only to give you the full experience of the newspaper game of old, only without the hangovers and the inky fingers.

Well, never say never, I guess. Just the same, your blogger certainly doesn’t think of himself as a podcasting kind of guy. Nevertheless, others do, and some of them keep asking me to be their podcast guest.

This time it was my friend and colleague Dave Cournoyer, author of the Daveberta.ca blog.

In the absence of his usual co-host, Ryan Hastman, who is soaking up the sunshine in Florida as we Edmontonians hunker down and enjoy our winter city, Mr. Cournoyer invited me to be his guest on the Daveberta Podcast, recorded Sunday in his dining room in the determinedly New Democrat Edmonton-Highlands-Norwood riding.

Dave’s other guest was Natalie Pon, who like Dave is young, articulate and extremely knowledgeable about Alberta politics, and who unlike Dave is associated with the United Conservative Party.

We had an entertaining time talking about the upcoming Alberta general election, what the governing NDP and the Opposition UCP have done well and not so well, and, of course, the catastrophe that struck the Alberta Party when an unconstitutional dog ate Stephen Mandel’s homework.

Not much sympathy for Mr. Mandel in the small crowd in Dave’s dining room, I’m afraid, but more than a couple of laughs. All this was made possible with the help of producer Adam Rozenhart, who threw his polished broadcasting voice into the action occasionally, too.

The podcast was published yesterday morning, when for some reason it was still magically 2018. But you can click on the link below to hear it.

 

As for Mr. Mandel’s homework, I expect we’ll be hearing more about that in the next few days.

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2 Comments

  1. As someone with Mr.Mandel’s experience should know, politics is brutal and there is usually someone eager or willing to step forward if the leader stumbles. As Mr. Mandel should also know, courts do not move with the same urgency that those putting their case forward might want. In fact they can be down right slow.

    There is a train called election leaving the station soon and there is a good chance Mr. Mandel is not going to be on it. It would be difficult for the Alberta Party to run someone who may not be able to hold office, if they want to be taken seriously. Therefore, they are either going to have to quickly replace Mr. Mandel, whether he want it or not, or perhaps more gently come up with a very clear “deputy” leader who can fill the role if needed.

    Given Mandel was not catching fire with the voters so far, I suspect Kenney and the UCP would prefer Mandel remain the sole leader of the Alberta Party. Perhaps the fates have in a quirky way offered the Alberta Party a do over. They would be wise to take advantage of it.

    1. Maybe if the AP hadn’t ditched their long-time leader who significantly raised the profile of the party, was liked and respected across the political spectrum, and seemed to actually care about doing a good job – as opposed to an old-hand PC hack prone to stepping on his own… er, um,… “bits”… (can I say that here?) – the Alberta party might have had a fighting chance to at least play a spoiler role in the next election with a leader who just already happens to have a seat in the ledge.

      But what do I know…

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