So the ballot counting made official what Danielle Smith seems to have known for some time: She is premier of Alberta, winning the sixth ballot with 53.77%..This is a slim victory which will make her job difficult. The ball is now in Travis Toews’ court to work with her to unify the caucus..The standings after the first ballot were: Danielle Smith 41.3, Travis Toews 29.7, Brian Jean 11.0, Todd Loewen 7.1, Rebecca Schultz 6.9, Rajan Sawhney 2.1, Leela Aheer 1.6..But how did she know?.Last Monday she gave a press conference that had all the trappings of an acceptance speech complete with a look-forward to upcoming priorities and some classic Rachel Notley bashing. None of her competitors cried “foul, no fair, she hasn’t won yet”. Looks like they knew as well. (Am I alone in wishing I wasn’t always the last to know stuff?).But we shouldn’t be surprised. Her campaign has been at least two steps ahead of everyone else. There were a number of obvious signs pointing to her victory, but only she was smart enough to recognize them..She recognized early the key to success was contained within the rural UCP members. She really listened to what they were saying and emphasized those elements of her platform that appealed to them. Without this rural base there is no UCP. This will now be characterized as her appealing to the “stupid, angry” underbelly of hay-seed Albertans. But really it was just good politics..She exploded out of the blocks with her Sovereignty Act from which her competitors never recovered. Regardless of where it goes, the positive effects of this idea in Alberta and across the country are already being felt. The federal gun grab has been resisted not just by Alberta, but by Saskatchewan and Manitoba, as well..The feds flirting with excess profits taxes on the oil industry was stopped before it started. And suddenly federal Liberals are visiting Alberta talking about a ‘collaborative’ approach to destroying our major industry..She used and abused professional opinion polling to her advantage. Rather than doing general polls of all Albertans or prior UCP voters, she polled actual UCP members using two different pollsters and got very similar results. The early results were released via the Calgary Sun to solidify her early lead in the race. The later results did not confirm her victory and were thus targeted to her soft supporters in an attempt to galvanize their votes..The September 9 Leger poll commissioned by the Calgary Herald and the September 30 Angus Reid poll seem laughable by comparison. Columnist Don Braid bravely proclaimed that Brian Jean could win on the final ballot and Angus Reid boldly predicted that “None of the Above” would finish first followed by Smith and Jean..Smith also knew polling is not prediction, voting intentions are not the same as actually voting. There are polling errors and in the last poll released by the Sun, 85% of UCP members claimed they'd voted. In fact just shy of 70% of the membership actually voted. But these polling errors tend to favour the early leaders as people tend lose interest and motivation if their favourite is too far back in the pack..Smith followed up the professional polling by limited telephone polls and getting direct feedback from her hundreds of events. There is nothing quite like one-on-one conversation to confirm if your message is resonating..The piling on by her competitors served her as well. They came across as angry, mean spirited and petty, as if voters were too stupid to evaluate Smith’s signature issue. It backfired and provided plenty of sympathy votes for Smith..The media hostility had the same effect. No doubt Don Braid’s superior moral compass and superior intelligence mean he's right about Smith and Alberta is now headed for chaos and anarchy. But the average UCP member and voter has long since lost respect for his views..And finally, she recognized her competitors just didn’t have what it takes to be a successful political leader. They just didn’t have her appeal, her communication skills or her ideas and at the end of the day this is what gets you elected — that and endless hard work and a zealous love for Alberta..Bill Marriott is a retired economist who specialized in public policy analysis of the oil and gas industry.
