Alberta is perhaps the most unique case in Canada, a province that literally has been a one party democracy for most of it's existence.  Sure, other parties always run candidates, but the incumbent party wins an inordinate amount of time, and forms majorities an inordinate amount of time.

A detailed look at Alberta political history, from an outsider, might be seen as some sort of an absurd joke, but the facts speak for themselves.  In 2009, the current ruling party has been in power for 35 years, through a succession of several premiers and several huge majority governments.  Led by charismatic leader Peter Lougheed, they were elected in a landslide vote in 1972, that replaced the Social Credit party, then led by Harry Strom.

Prior to that vote, the Social Credit party had owned Alberta politics.  Strom's predecessor, Earnest Manning, was re-elected seven consecutive times from 1944 through 1967 with huge chunks of the popular vote.  Manning succeeded William Aberhart as leader and Premier after Aberhart brought the Socreds to power in 1935.

In all of Alberta's 104 year history, we have had only 4 major political changes.  From the birth of the province in 1905 through 1921, the Alberta Liberal Party ruled.  1921 would mark the last year any party with Liberal in the name would ever come close to running Alberta, when the United Farmers of Alberta took over till 1935.  From 1935-1972 of course, the Social Credit party ruled the Alberta roost, largely under the leadership of Manning, who had an almost cult-like following in Alberta.  From 1972 till the present day, the Alberta Progressive Conservatives have held the government in an iron electoral grip.

But there is trouble on the horizon for the ruling APC.  Wildrose Alliance, a merger of two formerly fringe parties, is gaining ground and popularity.  They are a populist right-wing party that is capitalizing on anger at the current APC leader Ed Stelmach.  In many ways, history seems to be replaying itself here.

In 1972, the last time the Alberta Government changed hands, The Socreds, under their new leader since 1968 Harry Strom (a far less charasmatic figure than his predecessor Manning), were losing public support.  The SoCreds largely rose to power in 1935 on a wave of populist right-wing sentiment, and in 1972, there was another wave of populist right-wing sentiment pushing the APC under the leadership of the charasmatic Lougheed into the limelight.

Today, we see the same pattern.  The APC recently replaced a succession of highly charasmatic leaders (from Lougheed to football hero Don Getty, to wildly popular everyman TV reporter Ralph Klein) with the beuracratic Stelmach.  Dissatisfaction that started to appear near the end of the Klein era is coalescing under Stelmach, giving rise to opposition.

But it's always important to remember this is Alberta.  We don't do REAL change of government here.  In 1972, Albertans lifted up the tired old populist right-wing ideology of the Social Credit Party, and drove a fresh new party underneath.  When we reject the current APC party, and we will reject them eventually, it seems unlikely, given our past, that we will opt for true change, and thats why the Wildrose Alliance provides the most likely "alternative"to the APC party.  Albertans don't want REAL change ... we want to get a fresh new truck body, drop our old populist, right-wing engine into it, and call it a day.  In the wake of a convincing by-election win in an important Calgary riding, Wildrose Alliance looks like it could be that fresh new truck body.