Thoughts on Why Ed Stelmach Won the PC Leadership

My previous post was about why Dinning and Morton lost the 2006 PC leadership. That commentary was based on a study we did on leadership qualities Albertan’s were looking for in the the summer of 2003. A visit to the previous post will give you some context on the leadership attributes we considered.

What was it about Ed Stelmach that the Albertans liked about him when they showed up to chose him as their next Premier last December? The most significant positive Preparation driver for leadership in Alberta was someone with Business experience. None of the leadership candidates were strongly identified with having a business background, including Stelmach. However, his advantage was that he was also not identified with the other very negative Preparation attributes of being a professional politician, a lawyer or an academic. Other candidates were strongly identified with these negative attributes and that benefited Stelmach.

He was able to be identified with issues around the importance of Alberta’s role in Canada and the world. This was partly because of his past portfolios like Agriculture and top of mind issues like BSE and concerns about Alberta’s beef export access to American and other markets. His stint in International and Intergovernmental Affairs helped him understand and explain Alberta's place in a Canadian and international context. Stelmach’s recent success at the Council of the Federation, where he spent time explaining Alberta’s growth challenges and environmental plans, helped persuade most of the First Minister’s to sympathize with us and give us the benefit of the doubt and accept that we were engaged and up to the task.

In the end, I believe it was his personal qualities that made him the most attractive as the next PC leader and Premier. He was seen as an honest man with integrity and he campaigned aggressively on that theme. Even as a politician, he still farmed. That framed him to many as a potential leader who would not lose contact with the real lives of real people and not just identify and deal with the beautiful and bountiful or the rich and famous once he was in office.

His obvious ability to listen and even his lack of media skills would be perceived as positives in the campaign. Remember from the last posting, any media savvy candidate was seen as someone not to be trusted. They tended to be perceived as slick and masters of spin. The quality of being media savvy was a big leadership negative to Albertans in our survey results.

The other high value communications skill the survey showed was the ability to bring clarity to issues and to be a good listener. Stelmach is a very good listener. He sees and appreciates the complexity of most modern political issues and has a mind that likes to explore their implications and nuances. As a result clarity is sometimes sacrificed to his predilection for a fulsome understanding and "explanation" of the issues. In that way he is more like Jed Bartlett of the West Wing than George Bush of the Right Wing.

Being articulate was ranked as such a minor positive attribute that it could be considered as a neutral matter in our survey results. During the campaign, and ever since, the mainstream media in Alberta has made much of Stelmach’s “communications challenges.” Stelmach obviously lacks the polished “skill” of mouthing media-speak sound bite answers. That seems to drive the main stream media to distraction because they are so used to the professionally packaged politician. Citizens are not as concerned so long as they feel they can trust his judgement and his grasp of the issues. After all how many citizens get to (or have to) sit through an entire news conference or press briefing?

The second most important positive attribute for leadership from our study was being able to be an agent of change and to bring forth new ideas and support new ideas from others. This is where Stelmach's real potential lies, in championing changes. He has lots of change in progress in areas like energy policy, royalties and infrastructure funding. He is setting new priorities with an emphasis on innovation and technology, to concerns about managing growth and even raising issues about literacy.

He has instituted democratic reforms and reorganized the legislative policy committee structures to be all-party inclusive. He has introduced health reforms like legislation for smoking bans in public and work places. He is committed to cleaning up the teachers and other pension debts which was a holdover from Klein’s era. He is reviewing roles and responsibilities of agencies boards and commissions and the provincial government relationship with them including regional health authorities and municipalities. And he is instituting lobbyist legislation.

The record already shows Stelmach is an originator and supporter of new ideas and is a positive champion as an agent for change. None of this as yet to resonate with the mainstream media and, as a consequence, it is far from top of mind with the public. He is perceived by some, including me, as not having communicated very effectively nor has he executed political power particularly well.

There may be a change afoot however. The recent meetings in Moncton with the provincial Premiers at the Council of the Federation, Stelmach is being given media-based credit, for the first time, for his governance ability. He showed his capacity to articulate effectively, bring clarity to complex issues like climate change and GHG emissions and explain them in the context of accelerating economic growth pressures. And he has made the point of how Alberta's growth is benefiting the rest of Canada. All of these elements were identified by Albertans in our study way back in 2003 as the high value positive leadership attributes that we wanted for the next Alberta Premier.

Communicating clearly and executing the Premier's governance and political roles more effectively is a big part of what the PC government needs. These are key elements towards the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta revitalizing, rejuvenating and retaining its position as the preferred voter choice to govern the next Alberta.

An election is less than a year away and the Red Zone is a few months away. If our survey findings are still valid, letting Ed be Ed in ways that show off his personal qualities is one of our "secret" weapons to this continued success. Showing off Stelmach's personal qualities and capacities, especially as a champion for positive change, is big part of what we need to do to reconnect with Albertans. There is no time to waste Mr. Premier.

Why Dinning and Morton Lost the PC Leadership

Ed Stelmach’s win of the Alberta PC Leadership last December was a surprise to many but not to his hard working campaigners, especially given their success between the first and second ballot. Yes there was the emerging ABD and ADM factor (Anybody but Dinning and/or Morton) that will draw some to conclude Stelmach was a “compromise” candidate, but there was something else going on too.

The vote on the next PC Leader would also be the Premier of Alberta so the selection process was open to any adult Albertan who wanted to pony up 5 bucks and take the trouble to show up and vote. There were lots of people who were not typical Progressive Conservative party types but they did join the PC Party and they showed up and I think they made a big difference in the final outcome.

I had access to some particular insight as to what Albertans wanted in their next Premier. My firm, Cambridge Strategies Inc. with a strategic partner, did a Discrete Choice Modelling survey in the summer of 2003 where we asked Albertans to tell us what qualities they were looking for in the next Premier of Alberta. Given that it was done a while ago I think those findings still reflected, in large part, why Jim Dinning and Ted Morton lost and why Ed Stelmach won the PC leadership on December 2, 2006.

We surveyed influential Albertans, those who are involved in thier communities and whose opinions matter to other people, as to their preferences in three major leadership categories, Preparation for Premier, Vision and Education. We broke Preparation to be Premier in four experience areas, political, business, academic and legal experience. As for vision we asked if the next Premier should focus strictly on Alberta's needs, Alberta’s Role in Canada or Alberta’s Role in the World. The level of education preferred for the next Premier was between High School, University Degree and Post-Graduate levels.

We also asked about some personal qualities, communications skills and approaches to change citizens valued in their next Premier. The results showed the values of Albertans, including both positive and negative attributes, that would influence and drive their preferences in selecting their next Premier. It also indicated the degree of intensity Albertans held on each attribute.

I will share in my next posting my analysis of why Ed won, but first I will discuss what we discovered to be the least optimal leadership characteristics for the next Premier. I think this analysis of the study results around negative attributes, what Albertans did not want in their next Premier, provides some real insight as to why Dinning and Morton lost.

If your Experience in preparation for leadership was mostly political (Dinning) or academic (Dr. Morton) there was a significantly negative voter influence on you and your candidacy. If your Vision was focused exclusively on Alberta, like Dr. Morton who signed the famous Firewall letter, along with now Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The Firewall letter urged Premier Klein to isolate Alberta from the rest of Canada by erecting a policy “Firewall” around the province. That was the second significant negative attribute on the Dr. Morton candidacy and campaign.

If your perceived personal qualities were Assertive and Self-confident (Morton) or Informed and Curious (Dinning) it was a turn off to voters. The world is a complex place and Integrity, Honesty, Real Life Experience and practical Know-How were the preferred personal leadership qualities Albertans were looking for in their next Premier. If your Communications approach was that of a media savvy political spinner (both the Dinning and Morton campaigns) it was a major turn off. Being perceived as slick and glib was a curse to any candidacy for Leader/Premier.

If your approach to dealing with change was to follow the lead of others; that was the most negative turn off in the entire study. I think Dinning may have gotten caught in this negative attribute because many saw his leadership as an extension of the status quo Calgary dominated continuation of the Klein agenda. Morton, a Reform Party activist, Senator-in-Waiting was perceived to be strongly tied to the agenda of the Reform wing of the federal Conservative Party. He was perhaps seen as someone who would be more inclined to follow the Harper Conservative agenda and isolate Alberta from the rest of Canada.

Voter perceptions of a candidate having to kowtow to those backroom people who “brung you to the dance” and who those people were would have had an influence on deciding if a candidate was “their own man or not.” Morton stating early on that he would not be disclosing any information about his campaign contributors made people wonder who he was going to be beholden to and if such unknown forces may have too much influence that would not be in the best interests of Albertans. The Dinning campaign was seen as having lots of the Klein era holdovers from the plethora of MLA endorsements to long time Klein political organizers in key campaign roles. That could have contributed to a suspicion about Dinning’s practical capacity to be an independent leader and an agent of real change or would he be just a continuation of the same old – same old.

This is admittedly all 20/20 hindsight but it is interesting to consider nonetheless, especially as we go into the next provincial election expected in the spring of 2008. Next posting I will discuss the survey results and how they indicated how Stelmach presented a winning combination of experience, qualities and capacities.

Dick Cheney '94: Invading Baghdad Would Create Quagmire

What made Cheney change his mind from this analysis of invading Iraq in his 1994 interview?

9/11 is part of it but why did he and others mislead and lie about it - not just to justify an invasion surely.

What Albertan's Want The Next Election To Be About - Part 2.

My post yesterday dealt with the relative importance of the top and bottom issues in our conjoint study on 15 key policy issues done in the fall of 2006 during the Alberta PC Leadership campaign. We noted the management of environmental issues around water, land and air quality was the #1 issue on the minds of Albertans who participated in the study.

Environment has been #1 before but historically gets bumped when election time happens and other issues take control of the political agenda. That is not likely to be the case in the next Alberta election, presuming it is held in the spring of 2008. This because of how dominant the management of the environment is to the value concerns of Albertans now and for the future.

The posting identified the low end issues too but here are some results from the middle of the field. They were issues that were getting lots of news coverage but they were not the dominant concerns on the minds of influential Albertans last fall. They included creating a diversified value added economy (7th), maintaining public infrastructure like schools and roads (8th), addressing labour and skills shortages (9th), safe communities (10th) and quality and access to post-secondary education in at 11th place.

All of these are important issues but the ranking and intensity of the concern of Albertans means they are not most important issues for government to deal immediately with if they want to have a policy and political that satisfies the concerns of the majority of citizens.

Next we asked about how Albertans felt their government was performing in each issue area. The overall average performance rating of all issues was only 28.60 percent. Nothing to write home about but not unexpected given that government had been drifting for about 7 years up to that time.

The best performance by government at 51% was in the area of having safe communities, the 10th ranked issue. This is not too surprising since we only asked influentials who are very connected and involved in their communities and would naturally feel safe in them. A statistically random survey that did not focus on engaged citizens and opinion leaders may show different results.

As for the most important issues, like the environment, the performance rating was only 18%. Lots of room for improvement there! Health ranked at #2 performance ranking was well above average at 38%, not bad at all. Reducing poverty the 3rd most important issue saw a performance rating of only 16%. Lots of work to do there! Managing growth was the 5th ranked priority and only had a performance rating of 12%. That is some of the low hanging fruit for Ed Stelmach and one of his five key principles.

In fact Premier Stelmach’ Five Priorities fit very well with the concerns of Albertans that we identified. Why then is he having trouble connecting with Albertans? It is not his policy agenda or his political capacity. It is summed up in 2 words, communications and execution. That is where improvements have to be made and time is a-wastin.’

What Albertan's Want The Next Election To Be About.

What will it take to reassure Albertan’ that their government policy agenda is on the right track and focused on what is important? That is the big question facing the Stelmach government and anyone who looks to replace it come the spring of 2008 and a much anticipated provincial election.

I did a conjoint study on 15 key issues on the minds of some 350 influential Albertans last fall during the PC leadership. By influential, I mean people who are involved in their communities and whose opinions matter to other people. We did not just involve the rich, famous and powerful and we did not just reach out to Tories.

The findings are fascinating. We knew at the end of September, long before the traditional pollsters and mainstream media, that managing the environment issues of water, land and air quality had replaced health care as the #1 issue on the minds of Albertans. Not only was environmental management the most important factor it was well over twice as important as health care quality and access. Equally as fascinating was the need to reduce poverty coming in at #3, topping concerns over education quality, which was in fourth place. Managing growth and providing open and transparent government rounded out the top 6 issues.

The remaining 9 issues were of little importance, relatively speaking, with managing oil and gas royalties (12th) lowering taxes (13th) dealing with resource revenue surpluses (14th). The least important issue on the minds of Albertans was resolving problems facing Aboriginal Albertans.

This study shows the environmental and social agendas facing Alberta today are trumping the economic issues. These top six issues are the key drivers determining what is important to Albertans, and while it represented only 40% of the issues we studied it accounted for 70% of the overall relative importance ranking of concerns on the minds of Albertans.

So Premier Stelmach, there you have it. If you are seen by Albertans as the authoritative, authentic, informed and knowledgeable leader on those six issues you can expect to win with a landslide.

Later in the week I will do another posting on this research and show how Albertans thought their government was actually performing in each issue area. More fascinating results to come.