Charlie and Alan soon to follow.
With due respect, the article supports nothing. It claims that people are tired of attack ads. Mr. Tapscott provides not a shred of evidence to support his claim, which is, I can’t help but notice, more than a year and a half old and so not even particularly relevant anymore in terms of talking about anyone basking in Barack Obama’s glow.
“People are sick of negative campaigning” articles have been written before every election of my entire lifetime. People have always said this. They have always been wrong. Negative campaigning works just as well as positive campaigning, which is why, by the way, the Liberal Party will be running all kinds of negative ads when they can dig up some money.
Well, we can hope.
Steven Harper has grown up.
So has Michael Ignatieff. He no longer appears to believe that Canada can be governed from Harvard University, USA. He’s riding a bus across Canada, to meet real Canadians and try to understand what issues mean the most to them. Hey, Mike, did you learn that you’ve actually got to be here to understand the place? Your father must be so proud.*
And so has Jack Layton. Apparently, it’s a long bike ride from Marlborough Avenue in Toronto to Ottawa, ain’t it Jack? Now that you’ve been outside the GTA, here’s a hint, Jack: there’s a damn sight more to Canada and Canadians than Torontonians would have you think. To his credit, Jack is learning.
None of the above may be terribly outstanding, but I have no doubt that all of the above will authorize attack ads when an election comes. The chips will fall where they may.
- Sarcasm intentional. I had the honour of knowing Michael Ignatieff’s father, George, personally. Sadly, George passed away some years ago, but in the time that I knew him, he was a true Canadian, living and working here. George always kept himself informed about Canadian politics and government, and always had a reasoned, informed, opinion about issues of the day. I may not always have agreed with him, but I could not fault him on the information that led to his reasoning. It was fun to talk with George, as even when I didn’t agree with him, he gave the impression that as a Canadian in Canada, he really cared. Sadly, I continue to doubt that Michael cares as much about this country as his father did.
For the most part, the most horrendous attack ads all seem to come from whoever is in power, and feeling the pinch. Kim Campbell taking the vague pot shot at Chretien’s Bells Palsy. Paul Martin had one where this woman was curled up in a ball rocking back and forth in black and white. It didn’t SAY that Stephen Harper would take her abortions away, but it certainly implied it.
The ones that Harper has been using have been very pointed towards Michael Ignatieff, but they’re not untrue. I don’t question for a minute how smart he is, but politics is tenacity first, smarts second. He’s said a lot of unflattering things that have hurt him politically, and they’re going to take time to dissipate. He said he would go back to Harvard, America was his country, yeah fine. He wasn’t going to shed any tears over the Lebanese bombings, and then turned around and called it a war crime. But when Harper was in opposition, he had his own stupid blunders, like calling Newfoundland a “culture of defeat” or whatever it was.
And yes, people swayed by attack ads are morons. I’m not swayed by attack ads because my riding is as safe a liberal seat as ever there was, so I don’t care. I usually vote for the Christian Heritage Party, or the Marijuana Party, or write-in for “Alf,” as I used to do in high school elections.
On a side note, if Iggy wanted to make himself more palatable as an election choice, he learned what NOT to do in the summer when he went on his “nice guy” ad campaign sitting in nature with the creepiest Mr. Burns smile ever. 
I hope you say the same thing when people say Obama instead of President Obama.
I’m sorry to say the Liberal attack ads just got unveiled today. For the record, I think this is an incredibly bad idea.
I will be the first to admit to being horribly biased but I don’t understand why Michael Ignatieff’s comments have constantly come back to haunt him while Prime Minister Harper’s ‘Firewall Alberta’ letter is all but forgotten.
Marxist-Leninist here.
Dude got 44 votes in my riding - I KNOW he appreciated my input. (The winner got about 30K)
Jesus, were these ads and that website produced by the same goof who did Stephane Dion’s video?
-
In Ad 1, the big title block is “$16 Billion Tax Dollars.” Wait… what? Sixteen billion dollars tax dollars? What the hell does that mean?
-
Here is the line immediately following the second ad:
“While Stephen Harper attacks people, the Liberal Party attacks problems.”
This immediately following two ads that are entirely attack ads against Stephen Harper, and provide not one word of information about the Liberal platform.
Looks like it’ll be ugly.
I think I’ve only referred to President Obama as President Obama; I don’t bother correcting US Americans because for one thing, it’s not my country and my president, and for another, I’d spend all day every day doing it. 
PM Stephen Harper is buying jets? About damned time!
ETA: I also like the implication that PM Harper was personally responsible for the global economic meltdown. Nice work, buddy!
You aren’t seriously telling us that we’re all supposed to use the term “Prime Minister” every time we refer to him, are you?
I generally refer to him as Steve. One of these days his mom will call me and tell me to cut it out.
Well, I dunno; it seems awfully disrespectful to omit his title when if someone’s a doctor, it’s usually included in their name, and Right Honourable Prime Minister is a lot harder title to earn than Doctor. How about first use is with the title he’s earned and just his name after that?
He himself seems to think that people call him The Seeker.
There is no style guide recommendation or generally accepted standard that a Prime Minister always be referred to as “Prime Minister.” You don’t even always do it yourself (nor do you always call Barack Obama “President.”) As every newspaper, magazine and more or less everyone just commonly refers to the Prime Minister as “Lastname” or “Firstname Lastname,” can’t people on the SDMB do it exactly the same way as everyone else? It isn’t a sign of disrespect.
Not surprisingly, I don’t agree with much in that post. I think it is a sign of disrespect, especially as it is used in the title of this thread (no title, name spelled wrong, rude comment made). I haven’t been as diligent at being respectful as I should have, either, so I will endeavour to correct that in the future. In closing, this isn’t the hill I plan to die on; I think it’s disrespectful to not use the titles people have earned when first referring to them, but of course you can all do as you please.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper sucks the rancid jizzum out of week-old dead horses. Yep, no disrespect there; his title’s right and everything.
Take a page from Stevie’s book and grow some thicker skin (he ain’t gonna break).
Oh and I asked to change the thread title to “Stephen Harper” as that really is how his name is spelled; mea culpa.
Done.
I’m also wondering if I should move this to GD.
Is it?
I thought his title/honourific was “Right Honourable”, and that “Prime Minister” was more of a job description conventionally used to describe his being the Crown’s primary minister.