THERE IS NOTHING SO INTOLERABLE TO THE RIGHT AS A SUCCESSFUL CONSERVATIVE EXECUTIVE:

If she seizes the Alberta throne from the Tories, Wildrose Alliance leader Danielle Smith will be a force within the conservative movement that Harper will have to reckon with.

The territory she has staked out -- to the right of her province's ruling Progressive Conservatives -- is the natural habitat of a sizeable section of Harper's party base.

A Wildrose Alliance victory on those terms would come at a particularly sensitive time for the federal Conservatives; a moment when their longtime supporters are questioning whether the conquest of federal power has turned out to be a zero-sum game on the policy front.

Over much of Harper's six-year tenure as prime minister, his minority status has acted as a buffer between his successive Conservative governments and an impatient activist base. That buffer was removed in last year's federal election.

Since then, some of the harshest criticism of Harper's agenda -- including the first full-fledged majority budget his government brought down a few weeks ago -- has come in the form of friendly fire.

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