[Dion]

Keith Gerein: Clumsy NDP effort to vilify Jason Kenney carries high risk of backfire

And it’s not an entirely bad idea to have a central place for Albertans to get a fuller picture of the controversies that have dogged the UCP leader.

But if the NDP was serious about wanting the website to be a fair, fact-based effort and truly wanted Albertans to judge Kenney for themselves, they would have constructed the site in a far more neutral way.

Fire up your favourite internet browser and you’ll see what I mean.

Sensationalist headlines in all capital letters. National Enquirer-style banners. Unflattering pictures. Photoshopped images. All of it presented in stark black and white, gouged with streaks of blood red.

Some of the content is also questionable. As an example, the section where the NDP accuses Kenney of repeated rule breaking includes a number of allegations that are still under investigation, did not involve Kenney at all, and may have no “truth” to them whatsoever.

You have to remember, the NDP has tried to build a reputation as the defenders of the downtrodden, champions for fairness, justice and equality.

By engaging in such character assassination, I suspect many Albertans will see this as the moment when the NDP went from being well-intentioned do-gooders to schoolyard thugs.

The effort is mean-spirited and clumsy enough that it may actually get voters to feel sympathy for Kenney rather than making him the monster.

In this case, fighting fire with fire comes with a big risk of backfire.

In the NDP camp, the opposite is true, in which Notley’s favourability ratings are considerably higher than that of the party she leads.

Which is why you can see the advantage to the NDP of turning the election into a popularity contest between the two leaders.

It’s also why Mason, rather than Notley, was chosen to head the news conference, since it allowed the NDP leader to stay above the fray.

That’s a trick Kenney has used as well, in which he publicly calls for decorum and decries incivility, all while allowing others to do the dirty work.

The 2019 election was always destined to be a nasty affair, but I am a little surprised the NDP went to these lengths to scare Albertans.

https://edmontonjournal.com/news/pol...sk-of-backfire