Considering the softball of an opportunity they were lobbed, I thought the NDP did a pretty crappy job marketing themselves in this election.
They basically spent their entire time obsessed with Smith, and spent almost nothing on promoting their own platform or vision for the future. Attacking Smith was a legitimate tactic, but the myopic focus on it came across as kinda obsessive and insecure (the complete saturation of airwaves and cheeseball scary 90s video-effects didn't help). Danielle Smith is a known entity. How many minds are you actually going to sway at this stage? You either care or you don't. Was it really worth throwing 99% of your budget at it?
If you're a party looking to present yourself as the professional/sane choice to the moderates of our province...well, then consider demonstrating those qualities. Or at the very least tell them your vision for the future. Or clear up misunderstandings/myths about your party. They NDP did almost none of that in their advertising...they just focused on Smith. In the end they seemed to do a decent job of converting people in the cities, so perhaps their strategy worked just fine, but I think considering the context, they could've done better.
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