Friday, February 16, 2007

Yes, Virginia, This IS an Election Campaign

A week or so ago, Harper was hollering that the Liberals were going to force an election Canadians didn't want. Meanwhile, the Tory election campaign was beginning in earnest: personal attack ads, money flying out of federal coffers, popular-issue policy announcements galore, cabinet shuffle, campaign boot camp for Tory campaign organizations, desperate attempts to reinvigorate old scandals... they even got a military commander to slag the Liberals. This is full-blown, serious campaigning. We are in an election campaign. The gloves are off. The fighter is fighting hard, and he's fighting dirty.

But wait. There's only one guy in the ring.

Where's our Red Book? Our bold new policy initiatives? What is our new leader doing to show the country that he's The Man? (Step 1: Create an ad showing Stephane Dion speaking perfect English.) What are we doing? Ignatieff is talking about pharmaceutical uses of Afghanistan's opium... a worthy initiative, but hardly the right stuff to win an election. We won a vote on Kyoto, which I think confuses most Canadians. (It confuses me.) We're up in arms that PMSH slagged Goodale. We're expending a pile of energy on the NDP, who are like a gnat in this fight. Why aren't the party heavyweights out there undermining all the crap the Tories claim to be doing? Where's Bob Rae?

At the moment, both Ignatieff and Dion have an image problem: their voices sound whiny. They need to go to an image consultant, as Joe Clark and Maureen McTeer finally did, and pick up their act. Campaigns aren't about brainiac ideas; they're about effective PR.

We need to pick an issue that we can use to beat the Tories, and we need to decimate them. They're vulnerable. They're laughably, incompetently vulnerable. We expressed all this lofty idealism that we didn't want old Liberal baggage and so we picked a leader who wasn't affiliated with the good old boys who were so successful at winning elections. Bring 'em back, or bring on a new winning strategy, but let's not just sit here being outclassed by the American-style steamroller Conservative PR machine.

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Take a pill Yappi. The Liberals will start campaigning when the campaign officially starts. Do you want the Tories to steal our good ideas the way we stole the (very) few good ideas they had in opposition? Strategy, dude, strategy.

In case you weren't aware of the financial situation of the two parties, Harper's assholes have twice the cash, they can afford to waste money now. Besides, all they are doing is convincing the electorate that they, and not the Liberals, want to force an election. Have you considered voter fatigue and the repercussions to the party who forces an election nobody wants?

Dion and Ignatieff sound whiny? The Tory propaganda getting to you? Are you sure you're a Liberal?

Besides, the more the Cons talk the more they suck their own feet.

Anonymous said...

At the moment, both Ignatieff and Dion have an image problem: their voices sound whiny

Interesting perspective. To me, it seems like Ignatieff's image has vastly improved while Dion's image has stagnated.