Harper’s dirty politics

But he kept kept dumping on Michael Ignatieff and the Coalition. Finally the premiers told him to knock it off. They had come to talk about the economy, not Ignatieff.

Harper can't help himself. He's like that. He can't grasp the new politics of inclusion. Harper believes nice guys always finish last. Why be nice when you can be mean? And win!

Publicly Harper pretends he wants to be friendly with the Opposition parties and work with them on the economy.

Meanwhile the Conservative slime ad factory on the edge of town has been cranking out nasty ads against Michael Ignatieff. They’ve been running on private radio stations across the country all week.

The ad goes this way: Ignatieff is trying to sneak into power by the back door using a Liberal-NDP coalition secretly helped by the Bloc Quebecois, and plans to appoint separatists to his cabinet and also into the Senate and pretty soon the whole country will be run by separatists.

The message: Ignatieff is not to be trusted. He will destroy the country. Stay with Harper!

Conservative talking heads have gone on television talk shows to deliver the message. Next will come paid television ads with same message and then Conservative Party bloggers taking over Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, MySpace and the other sites.

Later come the funny ads CDs for the kids and for distribution into media newsrooms. The message is always the same: “Ignatieff is a bad guy.”

The same search-and-destroy strategy was used with success against Stéphane Dion. Mr. Nice Guy never knew what hit him. He never fought back. He kept saying that people were too smart. They’d never believe the Conservative ads. Oh yeah?

Remember the Conservative ads of Dion in a Haunted House with ghosts of the Liberal sponsorship scandal? So what if Dion had nothing to do with the scandal. The message: “Dion is a crook like the rest of them. Don’t trust him.” It worked.

The Conservatives bought time on the Super Bowl for anti-Dion ads. It cost a fortune, but it destroyed Dion. As they say: “Destroying your political opponent? Priceless!”

Remember the Puffin bird that pooped on Dion from great heights? Dion said it was in bad taste and no one would believe it. Oh yeah?

The message: “Dion is a politician who deserves to be dumped on.” It worked. Ridicule kills. Where’s Dion today?

In politics the strategy is always to define your political adversary before he can define himself. It’s called “framing your opponent.” That’s what Karl Rove and Frank Luntz have always taught. Harper has learned his lessons well.

So far Ignatieff is taking it lying down, just as Dion did, not wanting to be seen underestimating the intelligence of the Canadian electorate.

Recently it seemed that Ignatieff had awakened. He warned Harper one day: “Do not try to define me.” See how little Harper listened.

The Conservatives have a big advantage right now. The `Russian Count’ is hardly known by the Canadian electorate, even less known at this point than was Dion, the Green man and hero of the Clarity Act, at the same time in his leadership. And we know what happened to Dion.

Conservative television talking heads were on CTV Newswatch this past week saying the real Father of the much-hated carbon tax and the Green Plan is not Dion, but Ignatieff. They say Ignatieff thought it up by himself long before Dion latched on to it.

It’s not true, but does that matter? This is politics.

But ‘nasty’ alone can’t win. Focus groups tell us slime campaigns, just like television shows, must have comic relief - a bird pooping on somebody, or moaning and groaning coming from a haunted house. Everybody has a good laugh, the adversary is the goof ball, and the political message still gets across.

For the funny part of the anti-Ignatieff campaign, the Conservatives have an ad featuring a can of soup. It shows Ignatieff and Duceppe on the same label praising their wonderful “Coalition” soup.

The image: Ignatieff and Duceppe are in your soup. In federalist Canada, nothing is scarier than a separatist in your soup.

The message: “Supporting the Ignatieff coalition is like eating separatist soup.”

Bon appétit everyone from Stephen Harper.