Tories to Run Negative TV Ad Campaign

[Catchme]

Well, were passed half time at the Superbowl and I have yet to see a CPC attack ad, guess that little tactic was pulled eh?

[Ricki Bobbi]

Well, were passed half time at the Superbowl and I have yet to see a CPC attack ad, guess that little tactic was pulled eh?

I have noticed that too.

Maybe the Conservatives paid for production and a small ad buy just for all the earned media from the news stories that followed.

I did see one of them as an actual ad.

Then again I only saw the Chrétien face ad once as an actual ad...

[Catchme]

Well, were passed half time at the Superbowl and I have yet to see a CPC attack ad, guess that little tactic was pulled eh?

I have noticed that too.

Maybe the Conservatives paid for production and a small ad buy just for all the earned media from the news stories that followed.

I concur that was my thought too, and it was in the beginning as well. Good on them to try and see if it would float first, or then maybe the consortium that owns advetising rights refused to air them seeing as how the content may have broken copyright laws.

But e1 I know watching the SB said they would be really teed off to see political ads during the broadcast they want to enjoy themselves. Again smart move by the CPC not to air them.

[Ricki Bobbi]

But e1 I know watching the SB said they would be really teed off to see political ads during the broadcast they want to enjoy themselves.

Whatever. They are going to be upset about seeing political ads but won't care about watching dumb*ss mutual fund, car and restaurant ads over and over?

Anybody who would care about a political ad on during the Super Bowl is a hack who's vote won't be effected by the ad anywyays...

[Canuck E Stan]

If it wasn't aired, what a great coup by the CPC to get the news media to run the ads "freebie" and get all the publicity to boot.

Not to mention the money is still in the bank.

Watch for even more effective ads in the election by the conservatives.

[Ricki Bobbi]

If it wasn't aired, what a great coup by the CPC to get the news media to run the ads "freebie" and get all the publicity to boot.

Not to mention the money is still in the bank.

Watch for even more effective ads in the election by the conservatives.

Exactly.

I have a feeling their actual ad buy was very, very small...

[Who's Doing What?]

So everyone missed the ad?

I didn't actually see it but I heard it. So unless someone had changed the channel when I left the room, it was the "that's not fair" "its hard to set priorities" ad.

[Argus]

IF there's one thing the Cons love to do is blaming the Libs for all the problems of the government.

Given the timelines involved - though you are likely unaware of such things - how could they not blame the Liberals. A government program takes at least a year to impliment and much longer to have real effect. Therefore everything you see now, be it environment, health, foreign policy, etc., can quite honestly be laid at the feet of the Liberals.

Who, of course, refuse to take _any_ responsibility for anything.

Much like their supporters.

When the government goes back to work you see the "court jester" the "NEW" environment minister Baird, make jokes and blame the Libs for the environment.

And you're saying this is unfair somehow? How?

They seem to praise the US for their environment, when the truth of the matter is

That despite ignoring Kyoto the US has done twice as well as the Liberals in terms of emissions control.

When Ontario wanted help to put the coal-generator out of commission and put in a nuke, the money for it that Martin set aside was cancelled by Harper

Sputtering drivel. Ontario is responsible for its own power generation. The Liberals promised to close all coal fired plants prior to the last election. They have now gone back on that promise, and have not said when or even if they will close any of them. The federal government had nothing to do with McGuinty lying through his teeth prior to an election campaign.

The fact is Liberals only care about the environment prior to an election. While in power the Liberals pay only lip service to the environment. The Ontario Liberals have ignored the environment as much as their federal counterparts did while in office. And when it looked like the federal Tories were going to impose rules on the automakers it was the Ontario Liberals who were hoping mad and demanding no such thing be done.

[Argus]

You can find 10 Liberal broken promises for every 1 of Harpers.

Yet the Liberals were in power 13 years compared to the current 1 of Harper.

10:13

1:1

I would say there is a higher ratio of Conservative broken-promises:years-in-power than there is of Liberal broken-promises:years-in-power.

Ofcourse these are hypothetical numbers. Although I would be interested to see how any govt really stacked up. See what kind of percentage of promises they actually kept during time in office.

The Liberals would would win, hands-down, going away. No contest. The Liberals have not merely lied about election promises, they have lied about their principal campaign promises time and time again. They have lied about almost everything they ever promised.

I go back far enough to recall that the Liberal party's entire campaign against Stanfield was based on Stanfield's wage and price control idea. The Liberals' whole campaign was a scare campaign saying that such a scheme would put Canada into third world status, would bankrupt us, destroy the economy, etc. Six months after winning they instituted wage and price controls.

Not long afterwards, their whole campaign was based on Joe Clark's idea of a gas tax. They brought down Clark's minority over that tax, promised it would destroy the economy, and once in power, put in place the same tax, then increased it.

For years the Liberals made health care and social services the centrepiece of every campaign against Reform, the Alliance and the Conservatives. They portrayed themselves as the noble protectors of health care and social services, and the right wing as the slavering hoardes who would destroy it all in the name of American private enterprise. Some of you have grown up with those campaigns to the extent you believe it, even against all evidence to the contrary.

Yet what did the Liberals ever do during this time? In the earlier years, they consistently slashed billions from transfer payments to the provinces which went to health care, education and social services. While making pious mouth noises about "sacred trusts" the Liberals smugly cut funding, knowing the provinces would get most of the blame. Even in good times they didn't put the money back, not until the right united and began to present a serious challenge.Year after year as evidence mounted that health care services were deteriorating, the Liberals looked at the polls, smiled, and did nothing. So long as they were ahead they didn't feel obliged to do more than pretend that they cared about what everyone was going through.

Even then they gave back bits and pieces grudgingly, while ignoring the fact health care was in a shambles right across the country.

And next election? No doubt it'll be about the environment, something the Liberals utterly ignored during their entire term of office, except to make more pious mouth noises about their care and concern.

And I'm only dealing with their main campaign themes. I'm not even getting into promises to give MPs more power, to bring in a national day care program, to scrap the GST, to bring in better accountability rules, do away with the power and bribery of lobbyists, and the innumerable little promises made on scores of issues which never came through.

[Argus]

I'll agree with you that politicians break promises...no doubt about that one.

So far, Harper is not in the Liberal league although I'll admit he screwed up the income trust thing.

IMO He has also broken the promise that he was actually ethically different from the Liberals.

How much have they stolen and put into their pockets?

[Argus]

What a cerebral response. Is your response dictated by the identity of the poster, or the content of the post?

Totally based on the complete lack of content.

Yeah, that pretty much describes all your posts.

Your fanaticism has always been pretty obvious.

The Tories are in the same league as Hitler if they jaywalk, while the Liberals can rape babies in death camps and only draw excuses from you.

[Martin Chriton]

I liked the ads -- straight forward and truthful. If only the Liberals behaved the same way :angry:

[jbg]

What a cerebral response. Is your response dictated by the identity of the poster, or the content of the post?

Totally based on the complete lack of content.

Yeah, that pretty much describes all your posts.

Your fanaticism has always been pretty obvious.

The Tories are in the same league as Hitler if they jaywalk, while the Liberals can rape babies in death camps and only draw excuses from you.

Argus, are you calling me a fanatic? Why?

[jbg]

I liked the ads -- straight forward and truthful. If only the Liberals behaved the same way :angry:

If bullfrogs had wings, they'd fly. Liberals are many things, but not straight forward and/or truthful.

[Jerry J. Fortin]

Few politicians are. Their entire effort is spin related, attempting to make themselves look good while making others look bad. Now that kind of behaviour is not tolerated by me of my children in my own home. I certainly will not accept it as a common trait of my elected representatives.

[Remiel]

It may have already been said in this thread, but the real irony of the ads is that while they are attacking Dion for not being a " leader " (by some rather superfluous definition), the truth is the Stephen Harper is not a leader either, he is a controller. A leader pulls, a controller pushes. They can perform the same function in some circumstances, but they are not the same.

[Argus]

What a cerebral response. Is your response dictated by the identity of the poster, or the content of the post?

Totally based on the complete lack of content.

Yeah, that pretty much describes all your posts.

Your fanaticism has always been pretty obvious.

The Tories are in the same league as Hitler if they jaywalk, while the Liberals can rape babies in death camps and only draw excuses from you.

Argus, are you calling me a fanatic? Why?

I wasn't talking to you.

[mcqueen625]

And where, exactly, is the $400,000+ for Super Bowl advertising going to come from?

It is my understanding that the Conservative Party itself is paying for those ads, and the fact is that the Liberals have no money in their war-chest to retaliate, and they in reality couldn't anyway since the ads are factual and some of the clips are spoken by Dion himself. You can't refute truth, and these ads represent truth. It's too bad that the truth is painful to the Lieberals . Dion was a failure with regarding the sponsorship program, the useless gun registry, and the Environment, and yet he is still naive enough to have aspirations of becoming PM.

The first thing Dion needs to learn ,is the ability to speak English, so he can at least speak to the majority of Canadians. Sorry, I know it is not politically correct to complain that someone who wants to be PM can't speak the language of the majority. I know I should say that because we put up with another PM who couldn't speak either English or French intelligently, namely Jean Chretien.

[Who's Doing What?]

Yeah, that pretty much describes all your posts.

Your fanaticism has always been pretty obvious.

The Tories are in the same league as Hitler if they jaywalk, while the Liberals can rape babies in death camps and only draw excuses from you.

Prove it.

You want to talk Bulls**t like this, prove it.

Such overblown crap is expected from you I guess. Seeing as how your conservative-blue googles you view the world through would never allow you to admit any wrong doing by your beloved CPC.

I would like you to show 5 instances of my obvious "fanaticism". If it is so obvious it should be easy. Yet I doubt you can. Infact I am sure you can't. You are just creating your own sh*t and using me as an excuse to spew your own anti-liberal beliefs.

"...Liberals can rape babies in death camps...." ??? What is your problem? Not only is that sick disgusting and uncalled for, it's totally fabricated bulls**t. Your post is a joke.

You do realise you are calling me a fantatic because I called the following statement "hogwash"?

"Real, Canadians who *aren't* blind partisans will give him a pass."

Is that fanatical? No.

Is it hogwash? Damn straight it is.

"Real Canadians" ?? So I'm not a real Canadian if I want a politician to keep a promise he made during his campaign? Or does that make me a "blind partisan"? Both labels are being used to dismiss the person who would dare to question anything the Govt did, and delfect from having to deal with the issue. So why don't you take your hate-fest somewhere else. Maybe put your energy into something productive.

[mtm]

i see partisan personal attacks are a matter of course here.

I've said before, the cons and libs each have some good policies. The party system in Canada really bothers me though. For example, when the income trust thing happened, that was something that the Liberals wanted to do. The cons were dead set against it. In the end, the cons realized the libs were right, and it needed to be done. So they did it.

Instead of the libs saying "there, stephie, I told you so". And shaking hands in a spirit of comraderie, the Libs did an about face on it, turning it right around saying "you broke your promise". So I talked to my MP, Paul Zed, a Liberal, and he said, "as the opposition we have to keep the government accountable to its promises".

I said "but you guys supported the income trust thing, it was one of the things I supported. Who cares if the tories broke their promise, they ended up doing the right thing!". But their idea of "opposition" is that they have to oppose. When you oppose everything, you lose all credibility. In my opinion, that tory promise, and a lot of others, were promises worth breaking. But in Liberal land, they now see it as their duty to hold the Cons accountable to the promises that they fundamentally disagreed with in the last election?! Is that not TOTALLY backward? Should not they be forwarding their agenda by working with the Conservatives in order to work in the spirit of what the liberal voters wanted in the last election too?

Now, getting on topic here, to why this relates to the TV ads. While the Liberals are leading the Opposition by opposing, Harper is trying to govern by opposing. This latest move is a pre-emptive attack on the Liberals, against what they supposedly stand for. But Harper is leading the GOVERNMENT. As such, he should not be performing partisan business on behalf of his party, he should be governing the country. Let the citizens decide if he's doing a good job. To resort to partisan ads tells me that he and the party must not have much to do, and that they are not willing to work to make this minority situation be as productive as it can be. Quite frankly they have not yet realized they won the election, and havent got to the business of governing. Stephen just wants his Majority. What he hasnt realized is that in the meantime, there IS a government, he's running it, and he should do his job, for us. This minority has not been effective, as he has been governing from a position of opposition. The TV ads disgust me, and I am not a Dion supporter.

I think its a shame that the NDP have been marginalized as a "socialist" bunch of lefties. Theyve proven they can work with anybody, right or left. They dont care who leads the minority, they can just get to work and try and get the other two to implement some of their ideas and strategies. I wish that Stephie and Stephane would be so accomodating as to try and actually make things work, instead of automatically opposing each other. There are commonalities between all three parties, but due to the system they will never work out anything mutually agreeable.

[Canuck E Stan]

The TV ads disgust me, and I am not a Dion supporter.

When did you see the ads on TV?

Did they actually run the ads?

I haven't read where they have or when.

Lot of talk about where they going to show them,but did they?

I've seen it on the 'net, but that's it.

[mtm]

I've seen them online. I don't have TV at the moment, so I can't verify that they are running, but I wouldn't question it since its been so oft reported. All I can tell you is that they werent on during the leafs/pens game the other night. I heard a story just yesterday on Rogers radio (news 88.9 Saint John) that the negative ads were working, for example.

and its not even the content of the ads. They could say anything. I just don't think its appropriate for the government of canada to be running partisan ads attacking other members of the government of canada while the parliament is in session. Thats for an election and it has no place. I don't care what party they are from. It makes a mockery of our democracy.

thanks for your insightful rebuttal though. Are you actually going to comment on my point or argue semantics some more?

[Canuck E Stan]

I've seen them online. I don't have TV at the moment, so I can't verify that they are running, but I wouldn't question it since its been so oft reported. All I can tell you is that they werent on during the leafs/pens game the other night. I heard a story just yesterday on Rogers radio (news 88.9 Saint John) that the negative ads were working, for example.

and its not even the content of the ads. They could say anything. I just don't think its appropriate for the government of canada to be running partisan ads attacking other members of the government of canada while the parliament is in session. Thats for an election and it has no place. I don't care what party they are from. It makes a mockery of our democracy.

thanks for your insightful rebuttal though. Are you actually going to comment on my point or argue semantics some more?

This is the problem with people who believe everything they read or hear.

Argue about something that may not have happened?

I haven't seen the ads on TV,you haven't seen them on TV, so were they on TV?

Has the population of Canada seen these TV ads or not? Simply question.

[mtm]

I'll throw it back to you. do you have any proof that they weren't on TV?

Assume they werent. So the media is lying to us, then? Rogers saying the ads were effective was a fabricated story? Well, quite the conspiracy theory there. The ads are on the net though, and they were produced and released by the conservative party. So whether or not they aired (which they more likely than not did air), they are still out there in the public domain for anyone to see.

That stuff should be saved for election time.

[newbie]

This is the problem with people who believe everything they read or hear.

Argue about something that may not have happened?

I haven't seen the ads on TV,you haven't seen them on TV, so were they on TV?

Has the population of Canada seen these TV ads or not? Simply question.

I saw one on CTV the other day.