David A
Senior Member
Klein must have been the only one who got re-elected. So as the saying goes, the exception proves the rule. Decore of course never got elected Premier, Stelmach did not run for re-election and Strom did not get win in a general election either.The mayoral-to-premier pipeline in Alberta is historically surprisingly weak. I mean, yes, there's Ralph Klein (and his runner-up, Laurence Decore), but not much else. Harry Strom was a municipal councilor, but I'm hard-pressed to think of any Premier who had much in the way of substantial experience with municipal politics.
There may be others, but I recall the Socreds also chose a fairly popular former Calgary Mayor as leader, in the early 1980's I think, who did not really help their fortunes in the end either. Of course the Alberta Party has had several mayors as leaders, none of whom were successful provincially either.