While the Wild Rose Alliance may be ahead of the Conservative’s in Alberta public opinion polls lately, despite the parties new found popularity, it still lacks some of the most basic political infrastructure.

In constituencies like West Yellowhead, where Jasper sits, and in almost every other northern rural constituency, the party lacks basic organizing infrastructure, most significantly, constituency associations.

That appears to be changing. The Wildrose Alliance is set to announce a new constituency association in West Yellowhead, says the party directors.

“They have a leader and she’s managed to attract a lot of interest, but getting the actual legs on the ground. That’s the big project for the party right now,” said Dr. John von Heyking, an associate professor the Department of Political Science at the University of Lethbridge.

He said that if the Wildrose Alliance wants to win the next election, it will have to do more than simply court Edmonton and Calgary, and win some rural ridings like West Yellowhead. That means they will need to strengthen their constituency associations. Whether they can do this is subject to a great deal of debate. Some believe the signs, so far, say things are going very well.

Made of leading members of the party for their geographical area, constituency associations help select MLAs for elections, organize events to raise awareness about the party, help draft and conduct fundraising efforts, conduct surveys and advertising efforts, and a host other jobs. People in the association also have the ear of the parties MLA (or potential MLA) for the area and, in turn, can influence the issues that are going to come forward in Edmonton.

Most constituency associations are made up of local volunteers who have full-time day jobs on the side. Jobs can be all encompassing during election season, but typically involve giving up the odd spare weekend or weeknight. There is no formal pay for the work.

The man in charge of putting together the constituency associations for the Wild Rose Alliance in 14 constituencies in Northern Alberta is Todd Loewen, northern director for the party. He’s been a busy man lately.

“So much so that my other job is beginning to suffer a little bit,” said Loewen, who runs a small farming related business for his day job.

He is the man who will appoint the people who will sit on the constituency associations in ridings like West Yellowhead.

Over the past several months, he said he’s been responding to email messages, asking people if they’d like to take some role in building the party. He said every day, his email inbox gets multple messages from people looking to take some role in the Wildrose Alliance.

Every week, there are numerous followup interviews over the phone or in person to do with people who look like they can bring something to the party.

He expects the West Yellowhead riding to formally announce itself by the end of April. - he hopes. He’s got a lot of other constituencies to work on too.

“People are coming forward pretty regularly. They’re wanting to step forward and help organize. Just do something for the party,” he said. “I’m not trying to set up any road blocks. We want as many people as possible onboard. Everyone has some sort of a skill set to offer. We want to be inclusive.”

He said part of the reason for the parties piquing of peoples interests is because things seem so directionless in Edmonton right now.

“Things just never seem to go right over basically every decision they make,” said Loewen.

Albertans are typically a conservative people, he said, but the Conservative Party has done an extremely poor job of living up to it’s professed beliefs.
“There’s a conservative opportunity here. We need to show that people do have a choice here on the right,” said Loewen.

Dr. von Heyking said if the Wildrose Alliance wants to capitalize on that frustration, it will need a network of party officials ready to channel that anger.

“Politics is really about people helping out their friends,” said von Heyking. “They’re going to want to pick out people who already have a lot of friends and colleagues who can build into their network of friends.”

Von Heyking said that the Wildrose Alliance appears to be making some good moves towards capitalizing on the frustration of Albertans and building up their party brand and its constituency associations.

Partially this is because building a party is easier in someways than leading one to an election victory, he said.

He said that spotting the kind of person to run a constituency association is typically easier than the person who would make a successful MLA.

“You need someone to focus on the nitty gritty details, someone who is well organized and these are the kind of people who can typically be found in the world of business,” said von Heyking.

He said that in the old world of politics, it used to be about who had the biggest rolodex. Now it’s about who’s got the most stacked blackberry. He believes that some of the people who are now advising the Wildrose Alliance have some very stacked blackberries.

Some of those people are former advisers to prime minister Stephen Harper and the federal Conservatives during the early and mid 2000’s. Those include Rainer Knopff, a political scientist who signed the Prime Minister’s infamous “Firewall” letter promoting Alberta’s autonomy in 2000, and Frank Atkins, another political scientist who advised Prime Minister Harper on his University of Calgary master’s thesis.

It also includes University of Calgary political science professor Dr. Tom Flanagan, a former chief of staff to Prime Minister Stephen Harper who was instrumental in smoothing fissures after the merging of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservatives and leading Harper and the Conservatives to federal victory in 2006.

“Motivated by idealism, committed to the principles which Wildrose has enunciated. If they have that, they can get experience on the job,” is how Flanagan described the ideal Wildrose Alliance Volunteer in an email.

“A new party works with the volunteers who come forward. Occasionally a volunteer may not be suitable and will have to be replaced, but that isn’t the norm. The vast majority of Albertans are good public-minded citizens,” he stated.

When asked how well the constituency association was going for the new party, Flanagan said that he is not particularly well plugged into the party, but stated, “A couple of Wildrose friends have said it’s going well, but that’s all I know.”

Just how well it is going will be made clear in the next provincial election.