Rachel Notley versus Danielle Smith: may the most boring win

You can size up this election a few different ways.

The democratic socialist versus the populist libertarian.

The previously vanquished premier versus the oops-prone rookie premier.

But if voters are seeking to elect a pragmatic female leader committed to growing the economy and preserving a vibrant public health-care system, they cannot go wrong with either Danielle Smith or Rachel Notley.

At least that's what you hear if you listen to how each party markets its own leader.

Ultimately this four-week campaign is a contest to determine not what Albertans want — see the above oversimplified answer to that question — but whom they believe is best positioned to deliver on those ideals as premier.

Middle of the road (and the gutter)

This is why the New Democrats and United Conservatives will spend much energy telling us how ordinary and palatably mainstream their leader is, unlike that radical ideologue on the other side, with views incompatible with those of John and Jeanine Alberta.

Consider some of the major promises two parties stressed in the run-up to this election. If you thought this is a time to float big new ideas that chart course for the province's future, you were wrong.

Rather, both sides are emphasizing what their leaders won't do.

Danielle Smith doffed her premier's title twice in April to announce a pair of UCP "guarantees": that if re-elected she won't won't make people pay for hospital or doctor visits, and that she won't raise income or corporate taxes.

The Notley NDP, meanwhile, spent heavily from its caucus budget to buy an ad that covered the Calgary Herald's whole front page last week. The message? The NDP would keep the Canada Pension Plan in place for Albertans.

That's some serious coin spent on a declaration a party would keep the status quo. But it's a status quo New Democrats obviously believe the public wants maintained.

And, more importantly, it's a status quo the NDP will argue is threatened if the UCP wins, given Smith's long-stated interest in creating an Alberta-only pension plan.

The UCP is playing the same card with Smith's tax pledge. We are so committed to not doing what we insist our competition will do, that we'll enshrine our not doing so in legislation!

The UCP-NDP rivalry might offer the most pitched ideological contrast in Alberta election history.

But there are clear reasons why both parties are aiming to shave down their rougher edges and appeal to the blander centre with moderate, preservationist stances.

The economy is healthy and the province has ample financial room to spend without much worry — but memories of bruising recession and deficit are fresh, and Albertans are loath to return there.

Voters have more recent memories of backlogs, shortages and brutal waits in the medical system, because they're still here. There's public desire to rescue the system from the dire straits caused by the pandemic and its staffing aftershocks.

Since it's much nicer not to have to worry about either a rough economy or a nine-hour hospital wait, the parties want to portray their own leaders as safe harbours of calm.

But Smith's a wrecker of health systems who doesn't believe in medicare, the NDP will argue. But Notley's will clasp Justin Trudeau's hand as they dynamite Alberta's oil and gas economy, the UCP will contest.

Suburban warfare

The campaign's geographic targeting has also pushed both sides to market themselves as the more centrist choice. 

Polls show NDP are a lock in Edmonton and inner-city Calgary — there are now "safe NDP seats in Calgary," a laughable concept 10 years ago — while small-town and rural ridings are almost certainly in the UCP's column already.

This contest comes down to the Calgary suburbs and a few ridings on Edmonton's fringes. It's the apparent Goldilocks zone of Alberta politics. Not rock-ribbed UCP, not NDP either. Families and seniors with mostly stable incomes and go-along-to-get-along outlooks, the sort of voters the Progressive Conservatives appealed to solidly for decades.

It's no wonder that Samir Kayande, the NDP's Calgary–Elbow candidate, posted a picture last week of Ron Ghitter and Lee Richardson showing up to his fundraiser. Ghitter was an MLA in Peter Lougheed's government, and Richardson a senior aide to the late former premier (and later an MP for downtown Calgary for the Stephen Harper Conservatives).

If the sort of Calgarian who voted for them can mark ballots for the NDP, Notley's got a chance at returning as premier.

Kayande's rival for that vacant seat, lawyer Chris Davis, sent out automated messages last week to Calgarians stressing that he's a moderate conservative in the Lougheed mould. That adjective shows up on his campaign literature, as well.

What words don't appear on his brochure? Danielle and Smith. Same goes for many UCP Calgary candidates.

While Calgarians see themselves as hugging the centre, they don't see Smith that way. A Janet Brown poll last month showed they perceive Smith as well to the ideological right of themselves, no matter how many public health guarantees she might issue.

Notley is viewed as left of centre, but not as far from the central pole of non-ideological Calgary. That's part of the reason the NDP's leader figures prominently on the party's pamphlets and billboards in the city.

The UCP seems intent to wound perceptions of both Notley and the team around her. The party has depicted NDP candidates as rogues on the economy — and on police support, at a time when public safety anxieties may have spiked.

In response, the New Democrats promised to hire as many new police officers as the UCP announced — 150 — and, for good measure, as many social and outreach workers to collaborate with them.

And then there's the Calgary Flames arena project, where Smith flipped fiscal conservatism on its head with a $330-million commitment to the city's deal.

It makes Notley look like the potentially stingy one by voicing caution about such largesse. But she hasn't said no to it, just as Smith has not said no to mimicking Notley's big downtown-area spending promise of a $200-million campus post-secondary campus.

The gap

There are, of course, massive political differences between the two parties. On the private sector's role in health care, on the government's role in assuring carbon emission reductions, on what Alberta's pension or tax systems may look like in 2030, on how to respond to the next pandemic.

Voters get to figure out over the next four weeks which of those differences are the most reconcilable or irreconcilable with their own worldviews. Who's boring enough to lead, or who's too risky and radical.

If the polls projecting the tightest race in provincial history are correct, that might be a decision made on a razor's edge — even if there's a huge gulf between the choices that are actually on offer as opposed to the ones being marketed to the public.