Licia Corbella writes a columnfor the Ottawa Sun discussing political advertising:
The less-than-flush coffers of the Liberal Party of Canada are poetic and ironic in so many ways.
Recently, Liberal Leader Stephane Dion announced he would not stoop to running negative ads during or prior to the next federal election.
He'd like Canadians to think he's above all that. In reality, it's because the Liberals simply can't afford to advertise.
And he can thank that rather novel Liberal predicament to the king of negative advertising, Jean Chretien.
Licia goes on to explain that Jean Chretien brought in the new rules severely limiting political donations in order to ruin the political future of his successor, Paul Martin, or so the theory goes. Whatever the real motivation, the rules mean that the cash-strapped Liberals have to depend on amateurs who work for free to make their ads. And you get what you pay for:
So, the Liberals must resort to partisan bloggers to smear their opponents -- one of whom actually said Prime Minister Stephen Harper enjoys it when a Canadian soldier dies in Afghanistan. Typical Liberal smears just broadcast from a much smaller soapbox.
Of course she is talking about Jason Cherniak and his homemade ad that was so roundly condemned this last week.
Interestingly, readers of the column who don't go online or read blogs will be left with a terrible impression of the Liberals, and their partisan bloggers. Perhaps even worse than deserved, as these readers can only imagine what the ad looked like and what was actually said (Jason Cherniak pulled the entire post in the face of the firestorm of controversy).
Not what the ad was trying to accomplish, I'd wager.
