I am inclined to agree with some of your previous comments. The homeless shelter adventure was a total disaster.

But on your points above, let's be a bit careful. I don't see Klein as a neocon or anything really as far as ideology is concerned. He is an opportunist, period. He cares about one thing, getting elected, period. Just look at his little game with health in the last federal election, purposefully helping Martin getting elected. Precisely because getting outflanked on his right in Ottawa would be a total disaster for his own position with Alberta voters.

As for his fiscal policy, let's make no mistake either. We do get (1) the neocon rhetorics (and yes, early on his did do the cutting on which he built his reputation hence the cxredibility of his rhetorics.) Then there is that BS (AKA as accounting, as always, an exercise in creative writing) on "no debt." Alberta has had no net debt for some time already. But of course, if you don't include a big pile of assets in the accounting, you get whathever you want to cook up.

However if you look at actual figures, he actually has turned into a fairly big spender. Not that he can't afford to.

So, in the end, he gets everyone happy and he gets reelected. Not a bad exercise of smoke and mirror for old king Ralph. Of course, it's easy when you sit on the current oil and gas windfall. Now, when are we going to give a sewrious look at the envronmental disaster that's mounting in the north, with all the contaminated water that the oil sands business is producing? Wishful thinking can only go so far; but eventually, the bill for the mess will come back home with a revenge and it won't be nice. When flying back from Europe to YYC on a clear day, just look out the window and ask yourself what all these water ponds are. Just count them and see how many of them there are.