Go Stelmach

You Can't Teach That brings you a rare post on the subject of politics.

And then there were three:

Jim Dinning: 29,470 (30.17%)
Ted Morton: 25,614 (26.22%)
Ed Stelmach: 14,957 (15.31%)
Lyle Oberg: 11,638 (11.91%)
Dave Hancock: 7,595 (7.78%)
Mark Norris: 6,789 (6.95%)
Victor Doerksen: 873 (0.89%)
Gary McPherson: 744 (0.76%)

I expected Dinning and Norris' totals to be higher and Stelmach did better than I anticipated. This is a pleasant surprise since I've been a Stelmach supporter for the last couple of months.

Here's what I'm thinking:
-A northern alliance forms with Hancock, Norris and (for what it's worth) McPherson endorsing Stelmach. In fact, Hancock has already given Ed his blessing. I expect Doerksen will support Morton. Oberg could really go either way, but I suspect he'll go with Morton as well (he certainly wouldn't support Dinning...)
-The Dinning and Morton camps will fling crap at each other all week while Stelmach will mostly stay out of it and do the under the radar thing. This could give Ed a lot of second place votes.
-Morton's campaign has the momentum of a runaway freight train. Why is he so popular? Meanwhile, Dinning's continues to stall and continues to resemble Paul Martin's play it safe campaign. Stelmach picked up steam in the last couple of weeks, but I think he threw everything he had at making the second ballot. I'm not sure how much he has left. Dinning should still have plenty of funds.

Here's my early prediction for first place votes, which assumes the vote total from the first ballot remains the same:

Jim Dinning: 35.1%
Ted Morton: 33.6%
Ed Stelmach: 31.3%

Once the second place votes are counted:

Jim Dinning: 52.2%
Ted Morton: 47.8%

I will make a revised prediction late in the week that isn't based on so many assumptions. Let the games begin. Go Stelmach.

UPDATE: Fuck! Daveberta beat me to the Afghan Northern Alliance reference. I'll have to be clever some other time.