I was looking for Ralph Klein. The short, paunchy, Columbo-like former Mayor of Calgary - a politician with a reputation for talking fast, drinking hard and winning elections handily - had been appointed as Alberta’s Environment Minister and I was eager to meet him.

Klein was Premier Don Getty’s star recruit in 1988, enticed into provincial politics by a prized seat at the cabinet table. Getty’s popularity was in free-fall and he wanted Klein, not because the Conservatives needed him badly, as much as to prevent Klein from running as a Liberal. There were ample rumours about a Ralph Klein/Laurence Decore alliance to lead the Liberals and Getty was going to make sure that if Klein entered provincial politics, it would be as a Conservative.

Getty won. Surely Getty would make Klein a populist centerpiece of the newly-elected Conservative Government.

I found Klein and his sidekick, Rod Love but they weren’t where I expected to find them. Their office was buried in the west wing of the Legislature Building’s dimly lit basement. No office is further from the Premier’s Office; no office is further from the Legislature Building’s main entrance than Klein’s new office. Unless you work in the basement of the Legislature Building, the only reason to go into the basement’s west wing is to use the washroom. Why wasn’t this fresh new face, in a government that badly needed freshness, located on the main floor where he would be visible?

There are those who claim that a basement office in the Legislature has nothing to do with status and everything to do with space limitations. To which I must answer: which star newcomer has ever been promoted to the basement?

Getty’s reason for burying this well-known character in the basement, I learned, was that Klein couldn’t keep his mouth shut around reporters. Before he had walked into the Legislature Building as a Conservative MLA for the first time, Klein had already annoyed Getty by talking to reporters about Getty’s offer of a cabinet post which, given Getty’s penchant for secrecy, was not wise. Klein’s reward: the basement.

With all the subtlety of a jackhammer, Getty had told the media that this Klein character, so friendly, open and popular with the reporters that Getty detested, was just another face in his cabinet. The final slap: on Getty’s first List of Precedents after the 1989 election that, in effect, suggests the relative influence of each minister, Klein was buried at the bottom of the last page. Not an auspicious start to a new political career.

Having found the office, Rod Love didn’t waste time with me. I had been forewarned that he didn’t engage in small talk, that he was aggressive and blunt. Love didn’t disappoint. Seconds after shaking hands, he looked me straight in the eye and said: “Edmonton reporters think Ralph’s stupid. You probably think he’s stupid too?” Was this a classic case of lowering expectations?

The truth is that I rarely thought about Ralph Klein until he won a seat in the Legislative Assembly. I knew the Mayor of Calgary only by what I read in the newspapers: he was popular, loose-lipped and often engaged his tongue before he engaged his mind. Calgarians loved him, he drank too much at the St. Louis Hotel, Calgary police sometimes drove him home after a night at the St. Louis, and his “eastern creeps and bums” harangue gave him a national profile. I had heard and read about him, was curious about the manner in which he conducted himself in political office, but I had not met him.

HE LOOKED AS COMFORTABLE IN A SUIT AS COLUMBO

Early in the 1980s, Klein was a breath of fresh air in Calgary, a city laden with money, suspicious of municipal politicians, and inflicted with entitlement. His ability to win elections was impressive. As for Klein’s record as mayor, few could tell me whether he did anything memorable not directly connected to the 1988 Olympic Winter Games. He certainly didn’t mind spending money and didn’t appear to be concerned with Calgary’s mounting capital debt. Otherwise, Klein was another colourful politician lucky enough to be mayor of the host city in an Olympic year.

Did I think Klein was stupid? Why would Love even utter the word? Getty’s cabinet already had more than its fair share of stupidity and didn’t need any more. I didn’t know enough about the man or the politician to decide. In the ten seconds it took to walk from Love’s office into Klein’s office, I asked myself why anyone would think Ralph Klein is stupid. I was anxious to find out.