<\/p>\n
Susan Krashinsky<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Conventional wisdom has it that Canadians have a low tolerance for negative campaign tactics. While negative ad campaigns are\u00a0<\/span>commonplace for our neighbours to the south, it\u2019s often said Canadians are quicker to cry foul at such attacks.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n That may be true, said\u00a0Scott Reid, but don\u2019t confuse what people claim to dislike, with effective advertising. Reid is a former communications director for Paul Martin.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cCall them, negative, call them whatever you wish,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u201cChoosing to advertise about the other people can have a positive effect on your electoral prospects. No question. Here in Canada; not just the United States.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Reid said \u00a0the rhetoric about attack ads can be distracting. \u201cOf course some ads are manifestly negative and it is disingenuous to suggest otherwise,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u201cReally, the question is, are you advertising about yourself, or are you advertising about the other guy?\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Focusing on \u201cthe other guy\u201d can be the best policy. Midway through the 2004 campaign, when the Liberals began falling apart, they shifted their focus to criticising Harper. Liberal numbers solidified, and even began turning around.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhen they advertised about themselves, they were unpersuasive to Canadians,\u201d Reid said.\u00a0\u201cWhen both campaigns started advertising about the other guy, it influenced voting intentions substantially.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n This had a lot to do with the political climate. When Jean\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Chr\u00e9tien first ran to be Prime Minister, <\/span><\/span>the Liberals benefited from ads about their own policies. That\u2019s because the Liberals had been out of power for a time, Reid said, and they needed to prove their case. In 2004, everyone already knew Martin had balanced the books; the Liberal record was clear. Focusing on their achievements, he said,\u00a0would have seemed like bragging. The only effective message, in Reid\u2019s words, was: \u201cthis guy (Harper) is a ball of bad.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n While it\u2019s hard to measure the effect of negative advertising, the people who use it see it works, said\u00a0Donna Dasko, senior vice-president of Environics Research Group.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cCriticising the other party, that\u2019s the norm,\u201d she said.\u00a0\u201cWe haven\u2019t seen the level of negative advertising in this country that we\u2019ve seen in the U.S., and maybe we won\u2019t. Maybe there is a limit.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Still, Dasko points out the Conservatives started the campaign with a lead in the polls; and the criticism over their poop-slinging has not hurt those numbers.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cNegative ads are used all the time here,\u201d she \u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s a matter of degree.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Public opinion is too complex to write off negative strategies entirely, said\u00a0Jonathan Rose, a professor of political science at Queen\u2019s University. Rose specialises in the use of communications in Canadian politics.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt seems to be a congenial truth that Canadians are less likely than Americans to buy into negative ads,\u201d Rose said.\u00a0\u201cBut at the same time we\u2019re seeing a convergence of advertising styles in Canada and the United States.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cMessages have to be more in-your-face to penetrate the barrage of advertising we see every day. To make an impact, they have to do something different than expected. And often, that\u2019s negative.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n According to Rose, there is speculation that the puffin poop on Stephane Dion on a Conservative web site in the first week of the campaign was an attempt to generate media attention, which would increase traffic to the website. The site targets young voters, who are more likely to laugh off the scuffle over of a bit of computer-generated fecal matter.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Rose said\u00a0parties have used the web before, but there is now greater use of multimedia like YouTube videos \u2013 which are exempt from election spending, and which contribute to the overall effect of negative advertising.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe new battleground will be the web,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n There\u2019s a good chance the battle will continue to be nasty. And that may not be a good thing, said\u00a0Scott Reid.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201c<\/span><\/span>I have strong concerns about this phenomenon, and most of the people I know who are\u00a0 <\/span>involved in politics in a senior capacity share those concerns,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u201cI think it does generate cynicism about the political process, and it does have a debilitating effect.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n But in reality, Reid said, the winner-take-all system of campaign politics doesn\u2019t leave much room to be squeamish.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhen you\u2019re running a campaign, your mandate is to win,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u201cNegative ads might draw criticism, but I guarantee you the political media will reward no one for losing.\u201d<\/ins><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Susan Krashinsky Conventional wisdom has it that Canadians have a low tolerance for negative campaign tactics. While negative ad campaigns are\u00a0commonplace for our neighbours to the south, it\u2019s often said Canadians are quicker to cry foul at such attacks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-election2008","category-election-2008-student-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=367"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":370,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367\/revisions\/370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}