Liberal Party to unleash Nerf ads
The Liberal Party is preparing to unleash attack ads aimed at Stephen Harper and the Conservatives. Call them Nerf ads, because it's hard to see just how they will hurt.
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.
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Comments
How about calling it " Stephan Dion , the best thing for conservatism in Canada since Adscam . "
Posted by: Bill D. Cat at March 31, 2007 04:19 PM
See, the main thing is, the Conservatives have more money than we can spend in the course of an election campaign (legally). The Liberals are borderline bankrupt. If they want an advertising war, we will CREAM them - simply through a battle of monetary attrition.
Posted by: Frank Cybulski at March 31, 2007 05:49 PM
What conservatism. They are LIberals without the scandal ... so far.
Posted by: Kevin at March 31, 2007 05:51 PM
This will be funny.
IF the Liberals run7 negative or attack style ads then it will prove that Dion "lied" or "flip flopped" when he asserted over and over " I will not play that game. We will not be negative. That's not my style"...etc. You can find about 50 versions of Dion saying he will NEVER go negative.
So - let the ad wars begin.
Posted by: Lorraine at March 31, 2007 06:05 PM
Kevin, you don't get it. It's a minority government. The Liberals , NDP and Bloc are running interference at every turn. How can they enact Conservative priorities?
One thing for certain, the Liberals will not survive the next looming scandal with the RCMP. Some pretty big heads may roll, the potential is there. That's the main reason all the big guns in the party did the coward's shuffle, they were close enough to be in the know as to just how bad things really are. They were not going down with the ship.
It's also the reason they're demanding an inquiry which will take years instead of months. Well, this time they're out of luck.
Posted by: Libby at March 31, 2007 06:11 PM
I might donate to the Liberal party if they decide to run ads. You know what they say about giving someone a long enough rope.
Posted by: paul at March 31, 2007 06:11 PM
and have actually got things done, all with a minority government and no natural allies.
Yes, all that spending has certainly "got things done" - to the taxpayer. And unfortunately they do have thousands of natural allies - for example in the government departments who helped the Conservatives produce all those ridiculous, corrupt, undeclared campaign ads running nonstop on TV and radio stations trumpeting all of the wonderful things that our Big Daddy the federal government will do for us.
Thanks, "conservatives".
Posted by: at March 31, 2007 09:45 PM
Amazing the depths of despair amongst the grit faithful when they lost the last election, as seen by posts here and on other tory-friendly sites. Their feelings of entitlement, and angst that they can no longer steal tax-payer money with impunity is truly delicious to savor.
Wonder how many knives poor little Dion will have to dig out from his back when he is trounced in the next election?
Posted by: Alienated at March 31, 2007 10:23 PM
Is it ever nice to be allowed to comment on a site without some esoteric block put in place. I wanted to comment on Cherniaks site but I had to go through a registration and password process that makes it too troublesome to be bothered.
In Horse Racing some horses get skitterish during a race. The trainers are familiar with this trait and put "Blinkers" or Blinders on the horse so that they cannot see a horse gaining on them. Those horses are losers. It seems Dion's blogging backers are losers.
Posted by: Mel N at March 31, 2007 11:53 PM
Nerf Bat!? Dion's so weak he could swing an aluminum bat and it wouldn't hurt!
Posted by: Steve M at April 1, 2007 08:37 AM
"...the government departments who helped the Conservatives produce all those ridiculous, corrupt, undeclared campaign ads"
Umm... anonymous 945pm, you might find this hard to believe, but the Conservatives actually paid for these ads via their own fundraising. See, using slush funds and taxpayer dough would be illegal, and of course, this is really the province of the liberals. Small wonder you'd think everyone else does it, too.
As for "corrupt", what's corrupt about them? The beauty of the ads was they actually took Dion's words and used them against him. You want corrupt, then go back to 2003 on those utterly baldfaced lying liberal smears against Harper: lies about wanting to buy aircraft carriers, guns firing at the camera, healthcare fright-night.
Try cleaning up your own act before running your mouth in here, pal.
mhb23re
[at gmail d0t calm]
Posted by: mhb at April 1, 2007 06:34 PM
I like to deal in facts, if the federal conservatives get a majority or even if not, this is what comes down the pipe.
Lost of your CPP/QPP? in exchange for a personal pension.
(CPP will still exist, and be around for a long time, but no longer funded).
A parallel health care system modeled after the European system, cost of health care across the sea is less expensive, such a system set up in Quebec, starts at $1300 user fees, plus the province kicks in another 50%. Money that does not reach hospitals, shop with your health card in a public system, and must also pay user fees.
There is an upside to a free market and a down side, our current government said they would not interfere with any business. This means that Health Insurance (oh yes, to use these private health clinics (pouring in from the U.S.) health insurance is part of the package.) private clinics, prescription drugs will escalate under this type of a system.
A chap (who was a good friend of the Prime Minister) working for Merick Frost, lobyed the government for funds and got a bundle.
Harper said, tax cuts would come with a reduction in interest rates, associated with the deficit. Now that Harper is government the Superannunation that public servants pay into the CPP funds, he now claims is government money, and is using funds from these plans to help pay down the country deficit, so he can announce tax cuts. This is all with a minority government.
Now he wants to change the constitution to add "property rights", in the U.S. this is whats allows Americans to have the gun laws they do. The same thing will happen in our country.
thanks but no thanks to those policies.
Posted by: Jacko at April 2, 2007 06:28 PM
Is that Jacko? or Whacko! Me thinks your crystal ball has a crack in it! Speaking about using CPP funds to pay down the debt,how about the billions in UI surplus that were used by the liberalsto balance the budget.You say you like to deal in facts,then head off in to the future to create your facts as you see them. Read much Noam Chomsky! Sheesh!!!!
Posted by: Rexmeister at April 2, 2007 11:39 PM
"Now he wants to change the constitution to add "property rights"...thanks but no thanks to those policies"
Jacko, how do you find the taste of that socialist koolaid? It must be to your liking, honestly.
No "constitution" is worth the paper it's printed on if it doesn't protect one's property rights. Obviously, you're a gun-hater; that's fine. Are you a SUV or large-screen plasma TV hater, too? Because the same government that could arbitrarily decide to seize the personal property of gun owners could also decide to seize your 4WD or 50" plasma the day it decided to go whole-hog with Kyoto and Beyond.
And you'd be left with your mouth hanging open.
Yes, that's a bit of a stretch from where we are today (maybe). But without protection of property rights, there's nothing the government couldn't eventually legislate right out of your possession. That's why property rights are so important.
Think before you post, man.
Posted by: mhb at April 3, 2007 10:16 PM
 
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