The unthinkable has happened to Ralph Klein

This tells me that they did, indeed, want to avoid the last Alberta late local news cycle, and, I wouldn't blame them. Ralph Klein: decent everyman, slayed a tough deficit in the 90s, gave Albertans their money back in the 000s, but clearly began to lack a plan to move forward with that prosperity, and also clearly began to wear out his welcome with late night visits to Edmonton homeless shelters, tossed documents in the Legislature, and, I wonder even, frayed relations with a new Prime Minister from the same side of the ideological spectrum and similar turf. 55%. Ouch. Almost as painful as that big, long, run-on sentence I just wrote. Ah well.

At the same time, let's give him his due (from a national perspective) as a straight-shooting, "what you see and hear is what you get" politician. In many ways, we still need more of those.

PS The visuals, and short clips, of the speech that I saw this evening were not very inspiring of loyalty.