^With all of the money these guys have to spend and all the time they spend crafting a message, why are their ads so terrible? Why not pay a tiny bit more and hire reasonable actors with decently written lines?
You only have a small pool of actors to choose from when you need 1 from every potential demographic for each ad.
We get it Harper, Conservatives have a diverse base, now stop slamming respected business Indian guy down my throat.
I wonder if when a tourist goes to Victoria, and heads out onto the water for some sightseeing and recreation, if the boats' Captain and crew tell them what the refreshing spray hitting them in the face is really made of, and how it is environmentally viable.
Anyway, the ads that are being run have had the general effect of pushing me away from the parties that put them out. Much like the obtuse policies that the candidates are spouting, it is as if they assume that their target audience is incapable of making an informed decision based on too much information.
More than any other election in recent memory, there is no party that has a platform that speaks to me with any personal positivity. Their pandering and campaign promises are not directed to me, and their policies cost money and arn't inventive or forward thinking in any way.
I'm tiring of the meaningless talking points. It's a circus that creates spectacle, but leaves only a filthy mess when it leaves town. I've never been so underrepresented in an election.
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uh huh...now lets look back at Harper's years as a competent fiscal manager, with surpluses as far as you can see...oh. wait.
I'm not sure why the Conservatives think this is a good platform to run on.
Yup that's playing into Trudeau's hands. Trudeau's saying 'we will run deficits to give the things you want and those two snakes over there will balance the budget and take things away from you and probably won't balance it anyways" The other two parties need to counter this in the Sept 17 debate or the Liberals will start to steamroll.
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Yup that's playing into Trudeau's hands. Trudeau's saying 'we will run deficits to give the things you want and those two snakes over there will balance the budget and take things away from you and probably won't balance it anyways" The other two parties need to counter this in the Sept 17 debate or the Liberals will start to steamroll.
Seriously though, what is the counter? I mean the obvious is to say "we won't run deficits", but no one believes that. They can't suddenly say "we're also going to run deficits" because that will crater the campaign. Its pretty grim for the CPC in particular at this point.
For the Liberals to come out and announce their economic strategy with the deficits must have been so liberating. Rather than fighting the austerity and "we can do better" chatter they completely turned the conversation. Now when the other parties are accusing them of running deficits, they can simply agree and point to the infrastructure investments they plan to make.
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I think the deficit thing could be a great opportunity for the Liberals. I was ready to count them out a couple weeks ago, but they've surprised me.
It's kind of like the C51 support, in reverse. Now it's the NDP who are probably wishing they hadn't made the deficit claim.
I see this election going 125-115-100. And it could be any of the parties in any of the places.
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"For thousands of years humans were oppressed - as some of us still are - by the notion that the universe is a marionette whose strings are pulled by a god or gods, unseen and inscrutable." - Carl Sagan Freedom consonant with responsibility.
You know a party is on the ropes when the main message of their ad is "We know we're not great, but we're better than the other guys"
I think it's a shocking admission.
In 12+ years of campaigning from Harper, we've never seen something like this. It must play well with the focus groups. I'm not so sure though - what focus groups miss is the other parties spinning the ad. Now JT and TM can point to the ad and spin it in their favour - "even Harper knows he's done", "look at how desperate he is" etc.
At the very least, the ad is an interesting departure from his regular message.
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"For thousands of years humans were oppressed - as some of us still are - by the notion that the universe is a marionette whose strings are pulled by a god or gods, unseen and inscrutable." - Carl Sagan Freedom consonant with responsibility.
You know a party is on the ropes when the main message of their ad is "We know we're not great, but we're better than the other guys"
The Peter Mansbridge interview was a disaster for Stephen Harper as well. Mansbridge really pushed him on a few points, including thee Duffy-Wright affair and the state of the economy.
His tone and answers on the Duffy-Wright affair were brutal. I'm no expert in lie detecting, but it is so obvious he is blatantly lying about the whole thing it's insulting.
Mansbridge also lobbed a softball to him at the end that he completely fumbled. Asked him what makes him as a person the best leader to be Prime Minister. He just mumbled something about being baited into talking about himself like Trump and then about having a pretty good plan for the country. Instead he could have said something meaningful like "everything I do and have done serving Canadians as Prime Minister is about making this place a better country to live - I've dedicated most of my life to public service..."
The last few weeks it's almost like he has mentally checked out.
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Wow. Between the last one with "I'm not saying no forever, but..." about voting for Justin, and this one's "Stephen Harper isn't perfect..." line, it's like they aren't even trying. I guess they must see the crucial swing demographic as small-c conservatives who are no longer enchanted with him but may hold their nose and vote for him? Were those the only types of people in their test group?
^ I think that is pretty much exactly the point of attacking Trudeau. The Conservatives won't get harder left people, and the NDP won't get harder right. They are both fighting over Justin's territory, and looking for the people that do view their side as less bad.
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Originally Posted by Fuzz
"Justin is promising to run deficits"
uh huh...now lets look back at Harper's years as a competent fiscal manager, with surpluses as far as you can see...oh. wait.
I'm not sure why the Conservatives think this is a good platform to run on.
I would guess the primary goal is to paint Trudeau as a hypocrite, given how often Harper is attacked for running deficits. But then, he's a politician, so that is already assumed.
This time last year, this would have been a good strategy. "We've worked hard over the last several years, and now the light is visible at the end of the tunnel. Justin would move us back in the wrong direction" would work as an ad. But with the economy shrinking and Harper's promise of getting back to surpluses pretty much in tatters, it's not a strong soapbox upon which to stand.
Last edited by Resolute 14; 09-08-2015 at 05:19 PM.
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Wow. Between the last one with "I'm not saying no forever, but..." about voting for Justin, and this one's "Stephen Harper isn't perfect..." line, it's like they aren't even trying. I guess they must see the crucial swing demographic as small-c conservatives who are no longer enchanted with him but may hold their nose and vote for him? Were those the only types of people in their test group?
Not trying to be snarky, but you may have described the only supporters the Conservatives have left. Is there literally anyone who still actively likes Harper at this point? The impression I've been getting from reading this thread and discussing the election elsewhere (other forums and IRL) is that people are only voting Conservative this time because they view the Liberals and NDP as greater evils, not because they think The Harper Government is worthy of re-election.
To be fair, that's also exactly the same reason I voted Liberal the past few elections, so I can't say I blame them in the slightest. I was hardly excited about Dion and Ignatieff, but either would have been vastly preferable to Harper or Layton.
Not trying to be snarky, but you may have described the only supporters the Conservatives have left. Is there literally anyone who still actively likes Harper at this point? The impression I've been getting from reading this thread and discussing the election elsewhere (other forums and IRL) is that people are only voting Conservative this time because they view the Liberals and NDP as greater evils, not because they think The Harper Government is worthy of re-election.
To be fair, that's also exactly the same reason I voted Liberal the past few elections, so I can't say I blame them in the slightest. I was hardly excited about Dion and Ignatieff, but either would have been vastly preferable to Harper or Layton.
Well, same with me and the last couple of elections. However, I was under the impression Harper still had some of his base. Perhaps they're older and myopic, and smaller in number, but I did find it interesting they took the "we suck less than the other guys" angle. That anyone does. It's depressing. And for the CPC, it's a change.
(As for the actors, absolutely no one I know who's an actor would agree to appear in a Harper commercial, even the "starving" ones).
It's not getting much media coverage but after the Cons were mostly blamed for the dead child it turns out that Fin Donnelly wasn't being entirely truthful when he said the family had been rejected and he had brought the file to the minister's attention. In truth he had brought attention to the other brother and that application was rejected for being incomplete.
Given recent polling, baring some monumental shift I can't see Harper being around after the election. No way he'll stick around as leader if they lose, and I don't even think he'll stick around as a minority leader. And they sure aren't going to get a majority this time...
In short... WOOOHOOO!
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The Conservatives have got to buying 5 times as many tv ads as the other parties and still losing support. They desperately need to change their messages.
