Smith Campaign Continues to Press Media Advantage, Shifts Focus from Royalty Rates

This week the campaigns finally squared off on the policy front even as Danielle continued to receive media attention. After spending the first part of her campaign speaking to the media about the issue of royalty rates, Danielle Smith's campaign has unveiled a new policy platform on democratic reform. It was only last Friday that Danielle was on the Charles Adler show explaining why the New Royalty Framework badly needs to be fixed. This past Tuesday her campaign sent out an e-mail in which she outlines her policies on democratic reform. Danielle's proposals include policies on free speech, fixed election dates, direct democracy, and senate elections. By and large her proposals are similar to those that have are made on Mark Dyrholm's web site. One notable difference is that Danielle doesn't go quite as far as Mark on the issue of free speech. While Danielle policy states that "the Commission’s power of political censorship should be repealed", Mark explicitly calls for "the elimination of Section 3 from the Alberta's Human Rights Act."

Following up on the key advantage she has in garnering media coverage, Smith also appeared on the Leslie Primeau Show on 630 CHED yesterday where she admitted that a strong perception of Calgary as the oil centre of Alberta exists. Although Primeau brought up her interview on the Charles Adler show last week, Smith chose to discuss other issues and didn't bring up the New Royalty Framework once. Meanwhile, the Dyrholm campaign appears to be aware but not bothered by all the media attention is Danielle is receiving. Yesterday, the Mark Dyrholm sent the following message out to his followers on twitter, "My focus has been talking to people, not the media and I think that is working in the nomination. One race at a time." On October 14th we will know for certain whether Danielle's advantage in media coverage will translate into a victory or not.

To see Danielle's policies on democratic reform, please visit:

http://www.daniellesmith.ca/?p=159#more-159

To see Mark Dyrholm's policies on democratic reform, please visit:

http://www.markdyrholm.ca/policies