Justin wears shorts, raises a lot of money

Received an email this morning; Liberal leader Justin Trudeau "has a message for me." And a few million other people, but whatevs. Here it is:


 Much discussion in the online world about the clothing tastes of casual Justin. The suit and tie pundit crowd seem confused or annoyed. I think it's fine, but neither of us are the target audience. The Canadians that probably didn't wear a suit and tie while enjoying 20 degree summer weather last weekend are, and I'll let them draw their own conclusions.

If there's anything that annoys me about this video, its that whoever shot it held their damned iPhone vertically, leaving those big black bars on the side of the screen. Just turn your phone sideways and, boom, lovely widescreen video. You're welcome.

However, you know what I liked best about this video? That since Justin became leader, the party has raised over $1 million from 14,000 donors, including 6,000 first-time contributors.

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Painful media scrum for Adrian Dix on his Kinder Surprise

After a BC election radio leaders debate, NDP leader Adrian Dix faced the press, and questions on his Kinder Surprise. And it wasn't pretty. Between back-dating memos and forward-dating decisions, Dix's messaging is more difficult to follow than the plot of Inception.

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NDP says Liberals are hiding Christy, but where's their Dix?

There's an election happening on the left coast, and for all the preoccupation last year about the BC Conservatives, it's quickly shaping up as a choice between Christy Clark's BC Liberals and Adrian Dix's BC NDP.

Heck, even BC Conservative leader John Cummins admitted to reporters that, in the last election, he was unhappy with his incumbent and instead cast a protest vote for the BC NDP candidate. Apparently he didn't even consider voting for the candidate of the party he now leads. So I'm not sure why anyone else would either.

Anyway, apparently the NDP have been making hay with a claim that the Liberals have been hiding Clark in their campaign material, and a Tumblr has been created with alleged examples. Fairly common campaign stuff, but usually you don't throw this rock when you're sheltering in a glass house.

Because another Tumblr has popped-up, and hey, where's Dix?

Apparently 90 per cent of NDP campaign web sites and signs also contain no mention of their leader. That has to be embarrassing. Why are they hiding Dix? And why doth they protest so muchly?

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Thoughts on the new Liberal/Justin Trudeau ads

As mentioned earlier, the Liberal Party of Canada this morning released two new ads featuring Justin Trudeau that will be running on television and online, one in English and one in French (you can donate here to help keep them on the air). Both are similar in tone, although only the English one responds directly to the personally negative Conservative ad campaign.

We needed to respond

Content aside, I’m pleased that we've responded at all. And we had to, for several reasons.

For one, Liberals have been asked several times in recent years to donate in order to respond to Conservative attack ads. When ads were ran against Bob Rae, the party asked for money for a response; Liberals donated, the party never responded. At the time I outlined why a response would be problematic, but those Liberals that donated certainly expected one. We also voted at the last biennial to create a “Strong Start Fund” to give the next leader a coffer to allow him or her to respond to the inevitable Conservative attacks, and have been asked to donate to it regularly. And Liberals responded to another donation request after the Conservative ads launched. So just to keep faith with Liberal donors, a response was mandatory.

And secondly, Liberals are jumpy after having watched two leaders be savaged by Conservative attack ads with little meaningful response from the party. While we can debate for hours just what impact the ad campaigns had on the electoral fortunes of our last two leaders, the psychological impact on Liberals has been clear. So for our own sanity, a response was necessary.

The ads themselves

The contrast between the Conservative and Liberal ads is jarring, and deliberately so. The English ad makes the contrast obvious by directly pivoting off the Conservative attack, and offering a different style, tone and approach, and a different choice for Canadians.

Based on Twitter reaction, those in the Ottawa bubble have been thrown for a bit of a loop. They've been conditioned to expect cheap sound effects, sarcastic voice-overs and personal attacks. They don’t know what to make of this positive tone, this lack of flash and whiz-bang, just a leader talking directly to Canadians, a son and a father just asking for a chance. It’s different than what they’re used to.

The bubble crowd are not the target audience though. Canadians are, the Canadians who don’t watch question period every afternoon or PowerPlay every evening. The same people the Conservatives are targeting with their ads.

We all know that attack ads can be effective, so I like the deliberate mocking of the Conservative ads – Canadians can agree you’re right, those ads are ridiculous, we do deserve better. The classroom setting says I’m not going to apologize for being a teacher, and will remind Canadians of positive school memories – most of us liked our teachers. For many of us, they were role models and mentors.

Some will say the Liberals should have fought fire with fire. I think those people would be wrong. Let’s remember what this is about: defining Justin Trudeau. I wrote last week about voter impression polling numbers, which showed many Canadians have already formed an impression of Trudeau, and one that’s largely positive. The Conservatives want to reach those that haven’t made up their minds yet with a negative message – he’s in over his head. The Liberals want to reach those same people with a positive message – I’m a regular guy, a family man like you, who loves his country and just wants a chance to serve.

Both sides have now made their cases effectively, and we’ll watch in the weeks and months ahead to see how Canadians respond. And Canadians will watch to see how the leaders perform. Impressions will be formed, and solidified.

It will be some time be know how effective these respective campaigns will be. The Liberals, though, have finally gotten off the bench.

Game on.

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New Liberal ads are online

The Liberals and Justin Trudeau now have ads of their own, and they stand in stark contrast to the negative Conservative personal attack ads of last week. Take a look:



And a French ad that's a little different visually:

 

Have to run; I'll have some thoughts later.

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