"What do you call someone who predicted the Alberta Progressive Conservatives would win 61 seats on election day?" Jaime Watt, the PC "Insider" asked the audience at the Canadian Club.
Answer: "A liar."
Watt, and many others, have been trying to figure out how so many of the "experts" got the Alberta election story so wrong. For days leading up to E-day, it looked as if Wildrose was going to run away with a victory, ending 41 consecutive years of PC reign. In fact, the exact opposite happened, and the Tory dynasty continues.
How come, Watt asks? A few reasons.
"Too many commentators wanted to tell the great 'end of a dynasty' story," he says. They also failed to realize that the face of Alberta today isn't Ralph Klein, the former good-old-boy redneck mayor of Calgary, but rather Naheed Nenshi, the new urbane, Muslim mayor of Calgary.
Polling companies also let the public down. On April 17, the Wildrose Party was way ahead. On April 19, both main parties were essentially tied. On April 21, the PCs were up by 5 points. Too many public opinion agencies had already stopped polling, but the voters hadn't stopped moving.
"It's like having cameras at a busy intersection," Watt said. "If you're only taking pictures every 20 minutes, you can get the impression nothing dramatic is happening. But in fact, a serious accident may have happened and been moved aside while the cameras weren't watching. The same thing happened here. It's so true that polling is only a snapshot of a moment in time."
"Finally, money is incredibly smart," Watt added. "Money poured into the PC campaign on their website, unsolicited."
"All media organizations want polling but they have no money to pay for it," added David Herle, who ran campaigns for former prime minister Paul Martin. "So it's all superficial. You don't pick up any of the internal dynamics."
Add it all up, and far too many experts missed the story badly. Ultimately, it was a contest between the Wildrose's "firewall" and the PCs' "bridge" campaigns.
Most Albertans opted for the bridge.
Next time, we'll focus on one of former NDP strategist Kathleen Monk's most challenging moments in political life.