[Dion]

NDP should 'pivot off Kenney' after attack ads dominate first week of campaigning: pundits

Political watchers say the provincial NDP’s attacks on UCP Leader Jason Kenney won’t be enough to win key battlegrounds without highlighting Premier Rachel Notley’s successes over the past four years.

Notley announced Albertans will go to the polls April 16 just days after leaked emails outlined what’s been called a “kamikaze campaign” to ensure Kenney won the UCP leadership race.

Even with plenty of scandalous ammunition readily available, political analyst David Taras said the attacks by Notley and the NDP have begun to sound like “background music” instead of “the big orchestra” the party had hoped for.

“On Tuesday we were in the middle of this big scandal that it looked like this might be the thing that took Kenney out . . . but it seems to be slowly disappearing in the minds of voters,” Taras said.

But the party will need to “pivot off of Kenney” if it hopes to hang on to the legislature, he said.

Henry believes the NDP’s negative ads and anti-Kenney messaging might succeed in sidelining voter skepticism about the NDP’s economic platform in the short term, but “they’re going to have to start talking about issues” to resonate with voters.

“If all you do in 28 days is say ‘Jason Kenney bad, Jason Kenney bad,’ eventually there’s a big segment of voters who are going to say, ‘wait a minute, you’re not talking about the issues that matter to me, so I’m going to stop listening to you,’ ” Henry said.

https://calgaryherald.com/news/local...igning-pundits