Friday, May 22, 2009

While Rome is Burning "All the Conservatives can think of is attack ads"

This appears to be the Liberal talking points these days.

EI is broken and "All the Conservatives can think of is attack ads".

Chalk River is leaking and "All the Conservatives can think of is attack ads"

Sri Lanka is burning and "All the Conservatives can think of is attack ads"

I bought a pet rock and "All the Conservatives can think of is attack ads"

Last night while watching Pittsburgh slap Carolina, I decided to keep tabs on just how many times the "All the Conservatives can think of is attack ads" ran. On three separate stations, the ad ran 19 times between 7:30pm to 1:00am. I noted that the ad ran 14 times on Tuesday night between 8pm and 11pm (American Idol and TSN). Naturally, there is no formal count that I've seen publicized, but I think that these "All the Conseratives can think of is attack ads" are running early and often enough to define our fearless leader well enough.

Anyway, I read a book once that kind of said something like "define, or be defined" - or something like that. I think the guy that wrote that book is working up in Ottawa once in a while these days.

Not that I know anything, but "All the Conservatives can think of is attack ads" is not the response Joe Average is hearing. In fact all they're hearing is "JUST VISITING".

This will be election #4 that the Cons have managed to define a Liberal leader with next to no response. The first, Paul Martin was dwindled down from his supposed 200 seats to a minority government. The second, PMPM was defeated. The third almost resulted in a Conservative Majority. And this upcoming fourth? Well, define, or be defined.



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4 comments:

penlan said...

I've noticed the numerous times the ads are being run during primetime & later. They start during local news, the 6 p.m. hr., & continue on from there. And LOTS of people watch their local news.

I am very surprised that there has been no comeback on a large scale from the Libs - just online vids & media releases that seem to go unmentioned in the media, for the most part. It seems they haven't learned any lessons, especially after the horrible beating Dion took from them. The ads DO frame the person, people are hearing them & it does not bode well. Yes, the media has talked about how "silly" & juvenile they are but they are having an impact on the public.

So where's the response? Where's the plan?

roblaw said...

James - the problem with a prolific author and public persona like Michael Ignatieff is that there is just so much fodder for attack.. and a response perhaps opens the door.

Michael had the unfortunate tendency to enjoy the sound of his own voice, and would often say things with an air of certainty and authority to appease whoever he was seeking approval from..

ie) "To defeat evil, we may have to traffic in evils: indefinite detention of suspects, coercive interrogations, targeted assassinations, even pre-emptive war."

Frankly - I think that the point made in a recent globe article suggesting that Canadians vote for arrogant bastards over sincere losers is well-stated.

Witness Trudeau over Clark, Mulroney over Turner, Harper over Martin, Harper over Dion..

I'm not completely sure portraying Ignatieff as an arrogant elitist is necessarily going to hurt him at the polls..

RayK said...

Well, when you put it that way, it just starts to sound scary.

John said...

Good post. I just blogged about this as well (trashysworld.ca).
My feeling is that the CPC is seeing their numbers drop dramatically across the country (except the west, of course)and, like a cornered animal, are desperate to do SOMETHING! They have burned their bridges in Québec and are seeing their Ontario numbers drop as well.

The Grits are sitting back - hoping that Canadians do not buy into this claptrap... and this might be the correct call in this case. Time will tell.