Canada PoliticsWhy Thomas Mulcair isn’t attacked in political ads?
The Conservative attack-ad producers might want to get their storyboards ready.
Despite a relatively strong economy and a year of delivering on their promises, the Stephen Harper Conservatives now find themselves in second place in the opinion polls.
A new Canadian Press Harris Decima survey, published Thursday, indicates the NDP now have 34 per cent of popular support, compared to 30 per cent for the Tories.
Ekos pollster Frank Graves, says there's a lot of issues at play here.
"It is a product of building on success on last election, Mulcair honeymoon and the recent stumbling of Conservatives on robo scandal and the F35 issues," he said in an email exchange with Yahoo! Canada News.
"[The poll] also reflects burgeoning concerns with inequality, increased ideological polarization and growing sense NDP are best political bet for those unhappy with current national direction."
So why aren't the Conservatives going after Mulcair? Just where are those negative attack ads that the Conservatives have become famous for?
Journalist Barbara Yaffe suggests demonizing Mulcair and the NDP is a tricky task.
"Unlike the Liberals, New Democrats in Ottawa never have had an opportunity to award big advertising contracts to their friends. The New Democrats have never been in a position to dole out patronage. And they've rarely been on the receiving end of it," she wrote in a column for the Vancouver Sun.
"When it comes to negative advertising, Conservatives won't be able to target NDP leader Tom Mulcair's governing record, as they did recently with interim Liberal leader Bob Rae. Mulcair has never been a premier or prime minister."
For the time being, the Tory strategists have implemented a more subtle mode of attack. The Conservatives have launched a website called mulcairsndp. Every day, the site highlights one of the members of the NDP's shadow cabinet.
On Thursday it was international trade critic Don Davies' turn.
"Don Davies is the International Trade Critic.
He previously served as Immigration Critic where he was happy to associate with radical activists such as the group 'No One is Illegal.'
On Sunday, March 18, 2012 he attended one of their rallies where he tweeted a photograph of the group's logo and praised its campaign to stop all deportations, including deportations of violent foreign criminals, war criminals, and bogus asylum claimants."
The website is harsh but not nearly as jarring as the very public attack ads against the Liberals.
Somewhere, Michael Ignatieff has got to be thinking: 'that's not fair.'
