Danielle Smith wanted to talk about the economy, public security and what would make Albertans better off..Rachel Notley wanted the election to be a referendum on Smith herself — her character and her trustworthiness. She got her wish. And so, there was plenty of policy from the UCP team but not much talk about it in the media and when there was anything attractive, the NDP just copied it. Smith promising to lower taxes? We won’t raise your taxes either. Smith has a program for seniors? We’ll match that and throw in free shingles vaccine.. Notley concedesRachel Notley concedes defeat at her Edmonton headquarters, May 29th. She will stay on as leader of the opposition. .Meanwhile, the NDP sponsored talk without end about Smith’s supposed weathervane tendencies, drawing upon a rich vein of talkshow host chatter. She would gamble with pensions, she would charge old-age pensioners to see their doctor, the abomination of desolation would descend upon Alberta and so on. Heavens, Smith was not even a Progressive Conservative. (Was she supposed to be?) Why, she was in fact an extremist most comfortable with people who the prime minister once dismissed as having ‘unacceptable opinions.’.So went the narrative and a bitter irony for Notley it must have been that after 29 days trash-talking to voters, it turned out that more Albertans still trusted Smith than Notley..Here's the thing. Notwithstanding Smith’s colourful career in politics and media, or the intense divisions among Albertans over what this province should look like, Albertan voters never really thought the issue was about Smith's ideas or her good faith: It was always the economy..And in Alberta, energy is the economy and it stands in need of a champion, not a socialist collaborator with a hostile federal government. We will probably never know how many votes turned on Rachel Notley’s awkward admission to Global’s Mercedes Stephenson that her relationship with Prime Minister Trudeau would look like “..a lot umm… like, umm… it always has.” Those with even partial recall of her 2015-19 hold on office, would have heard that, and shuddered. So politicos will be picking over the wreckage of the NDP campaign for weeks. (The first place to which I would direct their attention is some of her party’s more imaginative fringe elements. The NDP's communist sympathisers — some would call them a little on the extreme side as well — and the bizarrists may have got elected themselves but they did their part in killing the chances for the candidates in the swing seats that their party desperately needed.).Meanwhile, what worked for Smith and the UCP was Smith’s relentlessly upbeat cheerfulness and positivity in the face of whatever they threw at her. The debate was illustrative: Notley had little option but to go on the attack. She did what she could to soften her approach, summoning up the unwilling ghost of Peter Lougheed in a well-cut blue suit. However, she still came across as harsh, bitter and negative..Negative campaigns are supposed to work. Often they do. This time it didn't. And now, Rachel Notley must consider her future..As Western Standard publisher Derek Fildebrandt points out in his comments, merely winning does not guarantee Smith four uninterrupted years in office, either. The famously factional UCP will doubtless continue to strive and her bouyant personality is less protection against party intrigue than it has proved to be against the voting public who can after all, be quite fair-minded. As Churchill famously told a neophyte MP who had referred to the opposition in the House of Commons as 'the enemy,' "The opposition occupies the benches in front of you, but the enemy sits behind you." .But a win is a win is a win. Smith has hers. Not as a consequence of a successful leadership campaign but fair and square from the people..As Rachel Notley considers her future, there's a moral to this story: When it comes to defining the ballot question, be careful what you wish for.
