With the Wildrose Alliance continually biting into the governing Progressive Conservative party's support -- narrowing the gap to six points in the most recent poll -- the Stelmach Tories are planning a political counter-attack in Calgary to stem the tide.
But the Wildrose Alliance has plans of it own. And it isn't being secretive about them, either.
Alliance leader Danielle Smith recently opened her party's efforts to sway support of the Albertan energy sector with a speech to an energy industry conference.
More recently Smith opened the second front of her assault on the Conservatives' oil patch support when she announced that David Gray and David Yager have been recruited to work with the party as part of an energy policy task force.
Yager, the chairman of the Petroleum Services Association of Canada , also wants to run for the party as a candidate. He says that the Stelmach government's preoccupation with royalty rates as a political issue has done harm to Alberta's economy.
"This government's narrow focus on royalty rates alone has not served anyone well--in fact, it's seriously damaged Alberta's economic future," Yager insisted.
Gray is formerly the executive director of the Utilities Consumer Advocate. His central concern will be the construction of electricity transmission lines.
"We're building huge amounts of transmission capacity in a world that is moving towards micro-generation and demand management. In short, we are halfway there in the wrong direction," Gray said.
A strong energy policy will almost certainly woo over energy executives, a group that speculation holds already sympathizes with the Alliance.
University of Calgary political scientist Barry Cooper notes that wooing the energy industry -- as well as the business community as a whole -- is a sound starting point for the Alliance, as it will garner them campaign donations that will help them spread their message.
"When that happens, that will give her the leverage to get her message out to other places of dissatisfaction with the government," Cooper explained. "The benefit, as well, is [business leaders] have enough money to send the message out to other places."
But as Keith Brownsey notes, the Alliance will have to demonstrate itself to be a politically viable force before it can expect the energy industry to come on board. If they do so at all, it likely will understand the risks of doing so publicly.
"The oil and gas industry isn't foolish," he said. They're not going to stick their necks out politically. These are smart people who want to do what's best for their companies and for the industry as a whole. And they're not going to anger a Conservative government that's in office for at least another 2 1/2 to three years."
If Danielle Smith plays her cards right, the Albertan energy industry may come onside with her party, but not until closer to an election.
But before she can even begin to expect oil executives to support her party en masse she still has to face the task of building her party organs. All the public support in Alberta won't matter if the party doesn't establish riding associations in all of Alberta's 83 ridings.
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