History is written by the victors
After an intense battle like the 2023 Alberta election, there’s an inevitable desire to craft a simple narrative that accounts for the outcome. Over the past few days, we’ve seen a concerted effort from UCP strategists to chart that narrative: both speaking to the Globe and Mail and writing about the campaign, UCP strategists are telling us that the tide turned because of the debate.
This narrative may well be true: the strategists have access to detailed polling data that the rest of us do not. My hunch is that the story is more complex: even before the debate, the UCP’s emphasis on the economy (softened by the considerable public spending in the months prior) had already shifted the ballot question in the minds of many ‘reluctant UCP’ voters. The debate may have enhanced that trend, or sealed the deal. And it’s entirely possible that Smith’s performance gave some voters ‘permission’ to support Smith, despite their qualms about her.
The narrative the strategists are pushing serves a particular purpose: it shifts away from an account that places party identification at the heart of the story to one that makes Danielle Smith the hero. From strategist Jason Lietaer’s account:
Smith was leafing through her papers as we wrestled with how to move the provincial discussion back to our preferred ground: economic stability. Voters were looking to be reassured about Smith. The debate was a high-stakes test of whether we could provide that assurance, or watch her approval ratings circle the drain. We couldn’t lose the debate. The premier looked down at her notes and wondered aloud: “I’m running on my record. Why isn’t she running on hers?”
Why does this matter? An alternative account of the campaign would assert that Alberta’s a Conservative place. A party that offers up low taxes, high spending and promises of economic prosperity can win, no matter who the leader is.
Early in the campaign, there was talk that Smith would face a challenge to her leadership not long after the election. Depending on how she governs, there may be challenges from the party establishment or Take Back Alberta. The narrative that Smith’s debate performance was pivotal to the election is a first move in the effort to insulate her from the internal party warfare that ended the political careers of Stelmach, Redford and Kenney. If anyone can win as party leader, Smith is dispensable. If only Smith can win, then she might have job security.
Does History Rhyme?
Mark Twain wrote “History never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme.” Smith’s long-term strategy now appears to be centered on an effort to recreate Ralph Klein’s electoral trajectory. He was first elected in 1993 with 51 seats, only two more than Smith’s UCP won. He recovered the party’s electoral dominance in subsequent elections, winning 63 seats in 1997 and 74 in 2001.
Sun columnist Lorne Gunter has seized on the parallel and argues that history will repeat itself: “2023 is the best the NDP will ever do” and “Klein matured as a leader, as I suspect Danielle Smith will.”
Perhaps. But how well do the parallels work? First, Klein’s showing in 1993 was actually substantially better than Smith’s: he won 51 of 83 seats, to her 49 of 87. Second, the 1993 election was peculiar, as it pitted the Liberals against the PCs, and the Liberals were positioning themselves as the party of true fiscal conservatism. This is hardly the progressive coalition that Notley’s NDP has constructed.
What would it take for Smith to win Calgary back? Four years of low-drama, stable government, generous public support for healthcare and education and occasional spats with Ottawa that don’t actually go so far as to involve the Sovereignty Act or embarking on a provincial pension plan. Smith might be able to pull this off, as long as oil prices stay relatively high, the federal government doesn’t embark on ambitious actions around greenhouse gas emissions, and Take Back Alberta doesn’t demand that Smith become the DeSantis on the North Saskatchewan.
But we live in unpredictable and unstable times. Whether Smith will be able to ride these various waves to recreate the second act of Klein’s ‘miracle on the prairies’ remains to be seen.
Well, of course they're rewriting history, conservatives have learned that if they can't control the narrative, it won't say what they want, factual, logical or otherwise.
I think the other story of this election is why the NDP strategists were asleep at the switch; yes Smith and the UCP served them up opportunity after opportunity on a silver platter that they tried to transform into votes. But they also let the UCP strategists play them, for example on the issue of Notley getting called out for 'not running on her record'. The first response to that should have been:
"You and your party have been the government for the past 4 years, not me and my party. That's why we need to talk about your record, the one you're running on. It includes going to war with health care providers, decimating the education system, throwing away billions on a doomed pipeline, a farcical new primary education curriculum, freezing and reducing income supports for vulnerable people. So let's talk about how you're running on that record'.
The response to creating a massive deficit from 2015-19? 'When the price of oil collapsed, something we didn't control or want, we made the decision that we would try and protect the people of AB and the services they value like education and health care, so unfortunately we went into debt. A significant reason for that was 40 years of conservative governments had failed to diversify our economy, or adjust spending to account for a cyclical resource market. This left us us then, and now, vulnerable to fluctuations in revenue and trapped in a boom bust cycle. Forty years of careless and reckless policy was going to have a price, and we all paid it. The difference is we tried to pay it with the least amount of suffering possible. Next question'.
If an uninformed outsider like me can figure this out, why couldn't NDP strategists?
Smith is an unfit leader that was declared to be unethical during the writ period.. Her leadership race for the UCP spent a lot of time trashing Jason Kenny and vaccine mandates imposed by Kenny. The conservative brand is really built on blaming Ottawa liberals for everything. The conservative brand endured despite the string of lousy leaders. Smith didn’t pull out a sun. Gerrymandered rural Alberta only hears conservative voices trashing Ottawa. So the most convincing position is to to link Notley to Trudeau and argue the 2 of them hate Alberta. That’s the winning argument.
Klein’s win in 1993 is because of Preston Manning. In the 80’s Alberta Conservatives could not blame Ottawa for Alberta’s problems because Conservative Mulroney was in power. 100% of Alberta MPs were in power in a conservative government. Yet, Manning rose with the slogan “The West wants in”. The west was in. When The Reform Party came in it gave the opportunity for Alberta conservatives to blame Ottawa even though there was a conservative government. This gave provincial conservatives the scapegoat it needed. The same thing happened after 20 years of Harper rule. 20 years is too long gor Alberta conservatives yo survive and not be able to scapegoat Ottawa. What happened? Prentice lost. He had no one yo scapegoat. Now that Trudeau is in he gets blamed for everything. Provincial mark mandates… Trudeau’s fault. Worldwide Price of oil drops… Trudeau’s fault. Equalization is based on the Harper formula…Trudeau’s fault.
Alberta conservatives are very predictable. Blame Ottawa for everything.