"We need to move to the next stage for both of our parties, the Liberals and the NDP. We may have our stalwarts but this is about getting a better government finally in this province."

Added The Star: "Swann said he'd like to see an arrangement so incumbent Liberals or New Democrats run in their ridings without competition from the other party. NDP Leader Brian Mason said his members have voted against any coalition with the Liberals and the party is committed to running a candidate in every riding. However, Mason said he's watching to see what happens."

Swann's public call for the Liberals and the NDP to work together, while somewhat tentative, is a milestone in efforts to get progressive-minded Albertans to work together in the next provincial election regardless of whether they supported the Liberals, the NDP, or the Greens in the last election or indeed fooled themselves that Ed Stelmach was going to return the Tory party upon which Ralph Klein had stamped his image back to the Peter Lougheed days when the party was more centrist. But the Liberal party as a whole seems rather silent about Swann's move to make the Liberal party the leader of progressive electoral forces in the province.

On the whole, those who join the Liberal party in Alberta today rather than one of the two flavours of right-wing philosophy on offer have different social values than Conservatives and Wild Rosers. They are far more committed to equality of opportunity, social inclusion, democratic rights, the right of individuals to have their basic social needs guaranteed, and the need to protect the environment than Cs or WRs who extol human greed, keeping governments off our backs, and the like. They would not have elected first Kevin Taft and then David Swann as leaders if they did not share small-l liberal values. Of course, such values are fundamental as well to the provincial NDP and the two parties have sparred for a long time as to which of them is the legitimate small-l liberal party in Alberta.

But the Liberal party, like any party, has both ordinary members and an inner circle who set the real directions for the party. It would seem that within that inner circle there is confusion about how the Liberals should approach the evolving political developments in the province. The Tories seem to be down for the count thanks to their ineptitude and the rise of Wild Rose. While most Liberals see that Wild Rose represents at least as great a threat to liberal values as the Tories, others, for tactical reasons, rather than principled reasons, believe that some sort of working alliance with Wild Rose might cause some Tory seats to fall to the Liberals.

That's a dangerous strategy and one that plays into the hands of both Wild Rose and that section of the New Democrats who want no truck or trade with other parties. Wild Rose is winning support because it has an articulate but unscrupulous leader who is now the leading political liar of the province: Danielle Smith, though she is right-wing to the core, is pretending to be open, moderate, and socially conscious. She is pretending that she can wave a magical wand that will at once reduce wasteful government spending and taxes while preserving and extending needed social programs. She claims that the oil companies, whose royalties are a pittance, are over-taxed. If her bluff is not called, she will get away with the votes of all sorts of unsophisticated voters who are not going to do the math regarding her vague promises. The Liberals need to demonstrate that she and her party are phonies, who will go even further than the Stelmach Tories in gutting social programs and allowing the environment to be despoiled. They cannot team up with Wild Rose simply because both groups are trying to discredit the Tories.

Instead, what the Liberals need to do is to emphasize their social values and make clear to Albertans how a government that they lead would differ from a government led both by Ed Stelmach/Ted Morton, on the one hand, and Danielle Smith on the other. They need to be clearer about fiscal policy as well as social policy and to let Albertans know how they will pay for the programs that their website announces. And they need to push publicly for an alliance with the NDP and with what remains of the former provincial Green party so that Albertans can feel that there is an alliance other than the Wild Rose Alliance that has a chance of forming government and which plans to carry out very different initiatives from Wild Rose.

The provincial Liberals have not, despite what some media columnists claim, been written off by Albertans. Their levels of popular support are unchanged since the last election. It would seem that most people who supported the Liberals in 2008 are not fooled by Danielle Smith. But if the party is to grow it needs to win over some of the something-for-nothing voters who voted Tory in 2008 and now are lurching to Wild Rose. It also needs to win non-voters and new voters by making its alternatives for Alberta as sharp as possible.

A move away from principles and clear programs on the part of the Liberals would deprive Albertans of the key party that they have been willing to trust to provide progressive government in the province. In Edmonton, it might allow the NDP to pick up a few seats at Liberal expense, something that the most partisan members of that party hope for since they have long since given up fighting the right-wing in Alberta except rhetorically. In Calgary, it might encourage past Liberal voters who don't particularly want a right-wing government but who yearn to kick the Tories out to cast their vote for Wild Rose (only the most blinkered of New Democrats thinks that that party can advance in Calgary in the near future).

The Liberals need to look at themselves honestly and to recognize that they cannot be contenders for power in Alberta if they are not taken seriously by the people of the province. To be taken seriously, they have to be able to put forward a clear vision, based on clear social values and policies that flow from those values, and they have to be able to demonstrate that they can form government, a demonstration that looks impossible at the moment but which will seem more realistic if they are in an alliance with the NDP and with former Greens who, between them, can honestly say that they begin with the base of the 40 percent of voters who voted for progressive candidates in 2008.