During last year’s Alberta election, something unexpected happened. Alberta elected a new, New Democratic government and brought an end to the Progressive Conservatives’ 44 years in power.
While many factors contributed to the “time for change” movement and the ousting of the PC government, news reports at the time made much of one particular moment during the campaign. Then-Premier Jim Prentice, initially hailed as a saviour who would turn PC fortunes around and bring the party back to its former glory after a period of malaise, commented that in order to understand who was responsible for the province’s shaky fiscal situation, Albertans had only to look in the mirror. Voters were already frustrated by revelations of largesse and accusations of corruption under the PC government, and their reactions to Prentice’s “look in the mirror” remark were swift and harsh.
The graphic below illustrates the reaction to Prentice’s comment. The lines represent cumulative net sentiment scores based on Twitter conversations related to #ableg, the Alberta Legislature hashtag used for political discussions in the province. The dark blue line depicts the trend for tweets directed at Jim Prentice using the handle @jimprentice. The light blue line shows the trend for #PCAA, the hashtag used for the PC party in Alberta. The plunge in the darker line after “look in the mirror” shows that Prentice dealt his personal brand a devastating blow, but that the party was less battered by the remark.
Reaction to a subsequent misstep by Prentice, however, showed that voters had put the party on probation after “look in the mirror”—and they were primed to punish the next misstep. That misstep came during a televised debate when, during a back-and-forth about corporate tax rates, Prentice attempted to catch NDP leader Rachel Notley in an error and quipped, “I know math is difficult.” Many viewers read the remark as patronizing and sexist; the hashtag #mathishard was soon trending on Twitter. As the sentiment score below shows, if “look in the mirror” had dealt the PC brand a glancing blow, “math is hard” landed hard. Neither party nor leader could recover in time for voting day.