Dear Alberta PCs: Welcome to life as a Liberal

Dear Progressive Conservatives,

First off, congrats on the 40 years in power. It was a good run and, speaking on behalf of the Alberta Liberal Party, I'd like to think we played a small role in making it possible.

But the latest polls show Danielle Smith and her band of lovable homophobes poised for power - some polls even have PC support dipping below 30%, into "Liberal territory". It looks like the party's over, and if Alberta's history is any indication, once you lose power, you never get it back.

So as someone who spent many years fighting for the Alberta Liberal Party, I thought I'd offer a few tips to help facilitate your transition to irrelevance.


1. Blame the Media: I can't tell you how many times I've heard Liberals complain that "we would have won, if only the media had covered our education platform". Yes, it's not in any way productive to trash the media, but it's something you can bond over with other activists, and it's healthier than blaming voters.

You've already got a good start on this - I've seen lots of tweets from PC members complaining about Danielle Smith's free ride this campaign. One Facebook post dismissed a ThinkHQ poll as "Wildrose propaganda", even though the company is run by Dave Bronconnier's former chief of staff.


2. Blame the electoral map: Repeat after me - "why does rural Alberta get so many seats?". Seriously, whose idea was that?


3. Forget the Past: I know there will be a temptation to look back longingly at the glory years. Maybe you'll even try to convince a nephew of Ed Stelmach's to run for leader one day, to try to reclaim the magic of the 70-seat Stelmachian era. But I've told enough Alexander Rutherford stories on the door steps to know voters don't give a damn about the past.


4. Accept the Messiah: Back in 2001, a drunk Ralph Klein berated the homeless in Calgary, and the voters shrugged. He threw a book at a 12 year old girl, berated AISH recipients, got busted plagiarizing an essay, and told ranchers to "shoot, shovel, and shut up" next time they saw a case of mad cow disease - each time, voters shrugged. It used to drive me crazy, but after a decade, I came to accept it.

The sooner you accept that Danielle Smith is infallible, the less likely you'll be to develop high blood pressure.


5. Learn to Love Opposition: Rejoice! The days of having to defend no-meet committees, controversial appointments, and spending boondoggles are over. I know you found it awkward explaining why Ron Stevens billed taxpayers for a 3-day "stopover" in Hawaii, as part of his fact finding trip to Australia to "study" their gambling system. Luckily, the days of PCs doing anything on the government dime are gone.

Yes, there will still be MLAs to embarrass you. But the good news is there will be far, far fewer of them.

On the other side, it's a lot more fun to criticize than to be criticized. You don't think vegans in the Annex don't secretly love complaining about Rob Ford? Righteous indignation is a drink that can make you forget about landslide election defeats, and given Danielle's Smith platform and caucus, she will be serving you up the ingredients for this drink every day.


6. Become an Idealist: I know a lot of PC members are only members because the PCs are in power. They won't be members for long.

Once they're gone, you'll have the freedom to advocate for policies you believe in. You think the Alberta Liberals are proposing carbon taxes and tax hikes to get elected? Of course not. Trust me - you'll feel a lot better having the door slammed in your face when you say something you believe in, than having the door slammed in your face because of a scandal involving an idiot Cabinet Minister you've never met.


7. Embrace the Novelty: It will take a few years, but before long you'll find yourself at a party in Ontario and someone will exclaim "boy, a PC supporter in Alberta - that must be tough!". I know you'll be tempted to argue or educate them - "actually, we won 8 seats last election and were in power back in 2011". But don't do it! Take it from me, no one cares that the Liberals hold seats in Calgary or that the party routinely gets 25% of the vote.

Instead, play up the stereotype - talk about the 3 person riding association meetings, or the time the 90 year old grandma in rural Alberta chased you off her porch hurling f-bombs your way. It's what your audience wants to hear. Call yourself an "endangered species" and claim you joined the PCs as "an act of youthful rebellion" - you'll be the hit of every party.

Heck, even a benign blog title like "Calgary PC" will be eye catching and mysterious before long.

This Week in Alberta - Behind the Numbers

It turns out the polling presentation made to the PC campaign committee at their AGM last weekend has been left on a public server. Oops.

Mind you, given the numbers are fairly flattering to Stelmach and don't reveal much about PC strategy or messaging, I suspect this may have been a somewhat intentional "accident". Still, it's worth taking a look, if only because we rarely see this level of in-depth polling data about Alberta in the public domain.


VOTE

The PCs already leaked the vote numbers, and why wouldn't they? They show Alberta's natural governing party leading the Wildrose Alliance 40% to 26%, an improvement from their 36% to 29% lead in June. Still, as the leaked presentation shows, the vote question asked about "local candidates" rather than naming the party leaders. I suspect the gap would be narrower had the vote question been on "the PCs led by Ed Stelmach, the Wildrose Alliance led by Danielle Smith, etc etc".

Regardless, the regional splits are the interesting ones here - given the small sample sizes we're dealing with, I averaged the June and October numbers together:

Calgary: WRA 36%, PC 32%, ALP 23%, NDP 6%
Edmonton: PC 42%, ALP 22%, NDP 18%, WRA 16%
Rural: PC 40%, WRA 30%, ALP 16%, NDP 10%

So long as the PCs continue to hold a firm grip on Edmonton, they'll stay in power, with the only question being "minority or majority". But if we ever see the Liberals and NDP return to their '04 numbers in Redmonton, then watch out - we've actually got a contest.


LEADERS

The take home message here is that Stelmach is still a drag on the PC brand, but not enough to drag them out of power - yet:

Stelmach: 43% favourable, 38% unfavourable (9% unfamiliar)
Smith: 30% favourable, 10% unfavourable (51% unfamiliar)
Mason: 24% favourable, 16% unfavourable (48% unfamiliar)
Swann: 17% favourable, 17% unfavourable (57% unfamiliar)

This is a big jump for Stelmach since June when close to half (47%) the province was unfavourable towards the big guy. Still, he's clearly a negative to the brand - 33% of Albertans say the PCs are the most competent party whereas only 23% say Stelmach is the most competent leader. I suspect we'd see a similar 10-point Ed-drag across most attributes.

Stelmach's biggest asset appears to be the "regular person" label, though I guess it depends if people think he's "a regular guy who is in way over his head when it comes to running a province" or "a regular guy like Ralph".

Half of Albertans still don't have an opinion on Danielle Smith - somewhat surprisingly given the media love-in she's enjoyed. This lack of awareness is clearly hurting her on some of the head-to-head leadership comparisons in the survey. But, man, if she can keep that 3-to-1 ratio of like-to-dislike when Albertans do become familiar with her, she'll be the next Premier. No question about it.

And before people jump on the Liberals, the survey refered to their leader as "Dr. David Swann". To me, that completely biases the respondent and (I would hope) the grits are smart enough not to be slapping the "Dr." on their campaign signs in 2012.


THE NEXT ELECTION

The most interesting part of this survey to me was the relative areas of strength between the PCs and the WRA. I'd assumed one of the biggest selling points of the Wildrose Alliance was the "balancing the books" argument. Yet, when asked which party is the most financially responsible, the PCs beat the WRA by a 3-to-1 ratio (32% to 10%). Even the tax-and-spend Liberals and that dang Dr. Swann are judged better money managers than the Wildrose Alliance.

Rather, where the Alliance seems to be connecting is at a more emotional, personal level. When asked about "values", the PCs only lead 27% to 21% - by far, the closest of the head-to-head attributes measured. And when the leaders are put head-to-head, Stelmach fares worst on the "caring" questions - "cares about the problems in my community", "cares about people like me", and "listens and responds to the views of others".

To me, this means the Danielle Smith Party has not surged because the PCs are "spending like Liberals". Rather, people see the PCs as an out of touch government which does not listen to, or care about, common Albertans.

And if that's true, it's actually good news for all the parties. It's good news for the WRA because they're strong on the "shares my values" question and that's one of the most powerful vote drivers in all of politics. It's good news for the Liberals because it means the WRA haven't surged on ideology (where the ALP can't compete with them) but rather on emotion (where they can). And it's good news for the PCs because, ironically enough, the largest strength of an otherwise dud of a leader is that people see him as the "common man" - the perfect counter to arguments their 40 year old government is out of touch.

This Week in Alberta - Extra! Extra! Man Joins Alliance!

Today, a Calgary Grit exclusive, sure to be on the front pages of every Alberta daily tomorrow.

My sources have learned that Edward Johnson, a long-time PC member, will be announcing his defection to the Wildrose Alliance this weekend. Johnson was the Bonnyville-Cold Lake riding association policy chair from 1996 to 1998, and was a poll captain during the most recent election (he won the poll, I might add).

His defection is just yet another in long line of high profile PCs who have jumped ship to the Alliance in recent months. The fact that he shares a first name with Ed Stelmach only makes this defection more significant. We can certainly consider Bonnyville-Cold Lake in play now, since Johnson will only need to convince 2,043 of his friends to join him for the Alliance to take the riding.

OK. Deep breath everyone.

The above was satirical, but it’s not far off from what we’ve seen of late as the Danielle Smith love-train continues to ride through Alberta (fun fact: The Vatican is considering waiving their waiting period to speed through her canonization). Don’t get me wrong – the PCs are in trouble and I’ve been saying so for a long time. MLA and large-scale membership defections are a big deal.

But is it really worth writing a whole column on how Ed Stelmach’s brother-in-law is planning to vote? Can we really call Rob Anders “Conservative talent”? Do we really need to go apeshit every time anyone who has ever held any sort of position in the PCs defects?

I mean, last election we had stories of Preston Manning’s old press secretary voting Liberal and Ralph Klein’s dad going Alliance. And, despite this, Steady Eddie didn’t do too shabby.

Despite these defections, the PCs are still miles ahead of the Alliance organizationally. Hell, the Alberta Liberals are miles ahead of the Alliance organizationally. I don’t doubt the Wildrosers are closing this gap, but let’s not let a good media narrative cloud reality.