Sunday, June 27, 2010

The Wildroses

Lost in yesterday's scorching of Toronto was the convention of the Wildrose Party in Alberta. The membership voted down some of their more controversial policies and instead went with a more moderate platform to appeal more to the center of the spectrum. In my humble opinion, they should have voted to change the name of the party. Perhaps Alberta really loves their flowers, but I have a suspicion that there will be people who will never vote for a party called "wildrose". Maybe they are born to be wild, but I'd prefer Wildcougars, or maybe Wildgrizzlies?

Right now the best thing they have going for them is an intelligent and charismatic leader, which may or may not be enough to overcome a terrible party name. Though I would not have advised the backhanded compliment that Danielle Smith gave to the membership "that shows a level of sophistication I didn’t actually expect to see". Perhaps it would be better if the leader had higher expectations of member sophistication?

6 comments:

  1. The wild rose is Alberta's flower. Also, our license plates say "Wild Rose Country"

    There was a rumour last year that Stelmach was going to issue new licence plates, and replace this "Wild Rose Country" slogan with something else, because of the free publicity it gave the Party. I haven't heard anything about that lately. I suspect there would be a big backlash, as Stelmach again displays his pettiness.

    I'm a member of the Party, and have no problem with the name. Voters know that they are to the right of the PCs, which is what matters the most.

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  2. Regarding the name Wildrose Alliance - its an Albertan thing. We love the visuals of this name - the Alberta rose grows in every corner of the province, wild, free, a profuse bloomer - without fetilizer or hot house techniques. Alberta winters can be brutal - cold and long - but come the spring this hardy shrub bounces back, enbraces life and grows with vigor. Its a great metaphor for the people of Alberta. If you have trouble with this go for the acronym WRA - perhaps that will work for those of you looking in. Cheers. ps the flower may be pink but it has a nasty set of thorns. lol

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  3. It may sound a little awkward the first time you hear it, but with usage, it becomes as normal as can be and you don't even think about what the words mean. It’s what those words represent that count.

    Kind of like the name of this and other blogs.

    And, as others here have said, it does have a certain familiarity and resonance with most Albertans.

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  4. No. If you lived here you get it. "Wild Rose" is as ubiquitous as "Rocky Mountain." There is even Wild Rose beer. Wild Roses are free and pretty which sums up Alberta nicely. It also fits our leader Daniel Smith, which you can't have. We're going to run off the PC's and make this province the clear conservative example to the country again.

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  5. And you think the oxymoron "Progressive Conservative" is a party name that people will vote for?

    My only problem is the political party will besmirch the name of the provincial symbol.

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  6. Alex, you greedy Albertans won't share Smith with the rest of the country.

    Joe, depends on your definition of "progress".

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