Angry in the Great White North

The Conservative ad campaign has clearly worked, and worked well:

The Conservatives launched English ads in January portraying Dion as a weak and whiney leader. Conservative MPs and pundits hammered home the message by repeating the tagline of the ads - "Stephane Dion is not a leader" - on political talk shows and in media interviews.

The party followed up with French ads in February that targeted the battered reputation of the federal Liberals in Quebec.

The offensive put the Liberals on their heels and dispelled the momentum Dion gained from winning the Liberal leadership in December, said [Darrell Bricker, a pollster with Ipsos Reid].

"Some of Stephane Dion's troubles now are the direct result of what the Tories did to him on air," he said. "The reality is they ended up sitting there while they got defined by their opponent."

At the time, senior Liberal MPs insisted the party would not retaliate, but insiders now acknowledge it was a mistake not to respond.

The Liberals have learned their lesson, and are attacking back:

The Liberals have been developing election-campaign themes and political ad concepts and testing them with focus groups for a few weeks. Some of the concepts are for negative ads attacking Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservative government.

It is expected the Liberal ads will highlight Harper's rush to go "green" in the last few months, during which he has announced a flurry of initiatives to combat climate change after previously questioning its existence.

Right then, highlight how the Conservatives have made tough decisions, and have realigned their priorities, and have actually got things done, all with a minority government and no natural allies.

Ouch, that'll hurt. Like a Nerf bat hurts.