Well the Tories have unleashed their first anti-Michael Ignatieff TV ad and here it is:
I don't like it.
First off, it's the first attack ad I've ever seen which attacks the other guy for using attack ads! Talk about hypocrisy.
Secondly, the ad actually reproduces the Liberal message "Tory times are tough times" in the spot!!! That's like giving the Liberals free advertising.
Thirdly,the overall message -- Michael Ignatieff lived outside the country for 34 years -- is incredibly weak.
So what if Ignatieff lived outside Canada? That doesn't make him a bad person or a bad leader.
What will make him a bad leader are his ideas.
So instead of focusing on simplistic, nationalistic nonsense, the Tories should explain why a Liberal government will be bad government.
H/T Stephen Taylor
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34 comments:
I agree... I hope the CPC comes up with better stuff than that for future spots - there are so many other angles to attack Ignatieff from, especially on what he has and hasn't done since he returned to Canada and became the "appointed" leader of the Libs. How about showing his signature on the coalition form, followed by his quote how the coalition was a bad idea that he didn't agree with?... that stuff is gold!
C'mon guys, you gotta do better than this!
I'm with Guffman. This is lame.
Relax! It is intended for an on-line audience apparently and responds to the kazillion done by Grit girl/(LPoC?).
How about an attack ad about iggy for the "MOST VULNERABLE"....but he has been absent in defense of the nanny's in nannygate??
Doesn't matter how lame the ads is,
Iffy has to answer it,
'coming to Canada as an opportunist' is not something you leave unanswered.
Iffy took a 2 year leave of absence in 2005, from his US job
that he said ( a few months earlier) he would not leave
''hand on heart truth'' he said in an interview with the TorStar.
Did he get an extention to his l.o.a. when he lost the Lib leadership race?
What a piece of garbage. Trash...
Dion attack ads wrote themselves. Clearly, attacking Ignatieff will require skill and if this attack ad is any indication of skill, the want ad should be soon appearing in the local paper.
Gerry, you nailed it. An attack at attacking the use of an attack ad. How hypocritical.
To Wilson: Perhaps Iggy left Canada to become more learned. Is there anything wrong with that? And he is returning from a cushy job as a Harvard prof to help his country. Again I don't have a problem with that. Guffman is right the CPC should come up with better stuff.
I don't think Ignatieff's "cushy" job at Harvard would pay as much as being leader of the opposition or PM. He was not a professor and had no tenure. He was the director of a think tank called the Carr Centre - something like our Manning Centre.
The guy needed a retirement plan that would give him some kind of pension and this gig is the best paying job he has ever had. Unless the BBC paid its talking heads like he was for 15 years more than $200,000 plus perks per year.
His books do not sell enough for much residual income and he has said he has never invested in stocks or bonds.
So, in 2005 when he said that nothing could entice him to return to Canada that was before the carrot for personal gain was dangled
Perhaps anon, you should get more educated yourself, on the Iffy story.
Your guy has never had a burning desire to live amongst the rubes known as Canadians.
When asked if he was changing careers (Toronto Star) to try politics in Canada,
he said no,
'and that's the hand on heart truth'.
By the end of that year, after much persuasion from the big boys, he was parachuted into his riding.
Lossing the Lib leadership was not part of the deal, so it got fixed.
Guess when he held his hand over his heart, he had his fingers crossed, eh.
I will agree that the attack ad is lame. It will work if Ignatieff does not have a response.
Ignatieff has been back in Canada for a few years now. That's long enough to be domesticated.
If I were Ignatieff, I would counter attack that the Harper government is not just attacking Ignatieff's Canadianness; it is also attacking anyone who was not born in Canada. This defense/attack is where Ignatieff doesn't feel personally offended, but makes sure that the public knows that Harper has offended many of them.
You could use the same retirement plan argument about Harper as well. How about disgussing the issues for a change?
Posted at BLY;
Bruce said:
May 12th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
From February this year Iggy’s friend Eric Konigsberg wrote;
“IN the last few years, Michael Ignatieff’s friends in the United States and England began receiving self-deprecating e-mail messages from him lamenting how dull and low-profile his life had suddenly become.
He had spent most of the preceding four decades making a name for himself in both countries — writing essays on the world’s war zones for The New Yorker, The New Republic and The New York Review of Books; writing novels and screenplays; enjoying popularity as a television-show host in Britain and a regular at the Groucho Club; and teaching at Harvard and Cambridge universities.
Now, he joked, he was stuck in the pedestrian life of a freshman civil servant — in Canada no less.”
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/posted/archive/2009/02/02/iggy-s-posh-jetset-friends-miss-him-and-he-s-no-obama.aspx
Dear Wilson: Iffy is not my guy. Harper used to be. Their ideas differ very little so I am fed up. Since all you care about is personal stuff I will add that Fatboy is just a tad less creepier than Iffy but only a tad. Anon.
Iffy complains to his jet setting worldly friends:
''he was stuck in the pedestrian life of a freshman civil servant — in Canada no less.”
But but but, he said he liked the smell of barns!
Skinny dipper is right. And what's hilarious here is that they are using an attack ad to attack attack ads. Funny stuff. Pattipage
Wow I finally agree with you on something. Bad ad all the way around considering there s so much to work with.
Sorry Gerry, but this has been done already (using attack ads to attack attack ads)......Doesn't anyone remember "they'll go neg."??
That had the added audacity of attacking attack ads which hadn't even happened yet.
Oh, btw,
Brian Mulroney says
Happy Birthday Iffy,
who is 62 today.
Won't work skinny dipper.
To immigrants, getting citizenship in Canada is like winning a lottery.
Iffy had citizenship and chose to live and work else where.
I don't think he will even qualify for the Canada Pension.
Get rid of Guy Giorno. His work with Michael Harris in Ontario made the Conservatives pariahs in Ontario and now he is going to make things worde for us nationally.
He is too hard nosed.
A) Are the Tories saying Canada is no longer your home once you leave it?
That you can never go home again?
B) Ignatieff is more Canadian than Harpo is Albertan. How about some ads by Alberta separatists complaining about leadership by a Torontonian? Harpo has, after all, spent most of his life in Eastern Canada, where he came from ;-)
This has to be a late april fools joke
Harper is from Ontario JC.
Alberta and Ontario are still in Canada.
Did you know that PMSH has been working in Canadian public since 1984?
Right about the time Iffy left,
our PM started his political career.
PMSH has written more Canadian policy than Iffy has written fiction.
Let's see Iffy's political CV.
-Parachuted into a riding in 2006.
-Elected twice as MP.
-handed an uncontested Liberal crown
It took Iffy 5 months to (about face) decide that PMSH was right about the coalition of losers.
It took PMSH 24 hours to make that same decision.
Had he lived in Canada a better part of his life, maybe Iffy would have gotten it right the first time.
After 35 years, this is why I am AToryNoMore.
"So what if Ignatieff lived outside Canada? That doesn't make him a bad person or a bad leader."
You are kidding - right? How about the fact that 34 years of absence means you are less familiar with Canada, Canadian history, Canadian culture, Canadian values, etc.?
Some advice for you...
Think - then type.
Hey mutton Chops, substitute the name Wayne Gretsky for Ignatieff. Living outside of Canada doesn't make him a bad person or any less Canadian does it?
I hear ya Tory No More...
Why are the conservatives so disconnected?
Conservatives up until recently believed in free markets, free trade?
Why shouldn't this apply to intellectualism?
Why can't there be that kind of free movement? Or is it more the conservatives haven't really thought this one through either?
We lose physicians, scientists, hockey players and others to other countries and we always welcome them home.
Welcome home Iggy, welcome home!
Ignatieff doesn't have a plan? Of course, they ignore the fact that the Liberal plan is to be ready by June and if they were smart they'd keep it to themselves.
I think having a worldly leader would be great.
So Gerry Turner has proclaimed this ad as “really lame”
Lets review the facts, shall we.
1. Because the ad briefly mentions the Libs attack ads, somehow in Garth’s world, this translates into what these ads are all about. That could only be true if you stuck your fingers in your ears and started screaming “I’m not listening!!”
2. Because the liberals say that “Tory Times are Tough Times”. You automatically buy into this BS hook line and sinker! When I see this "line" I think of how dishonest these Libs are. But not Gerry, no siree!
3. So, the fact that Iffy has spent almost all of his adult life outside of Canada is not to be considered a detriment to becoming the Prime Minister of Canada??? That’s what Gerry and all his other Liberal media buddies want all of us to buy into! Give me a bloody break!!
The fact is, this is a major negative for Iffy and his media enablers, and they know it . So they are doing everything they can do to create a narrative that casts these facts to be “normal as can be”. It’s no big surprise that Gerry is singing from that same song sheet.
He’s also the plays the trumpet on this song and dance.
AToryNoMore sounds more like AToryWhoNeverWas.
Just more of the same old liberal dishonesty.
And then we have "anony" trying to equate Iffy with Gretzky.
Nice try kids, but like Gerry says "really lame"
Gerry - this question has been asked on numerous sites but here it is again - Why are you on the Blogging Tory aggregator?
You may be a blogger but you are not a Tory. Your site is linked or quoted more often on LibLogs.
The content of your site and your public demeaning of the Conservative party, especially PM Harper, on other media confirms you are not a supporter. And you admit you have never ever been a member of the party.
So - again - why are you on the conservative BlogRoll?
Speaking of remarkably lame, how about the persistent use of "Iffy" by certain right-wing apologists to supposedly deride Ignatieff. This seems to be quite typical of the childish mentality of many slavish so-called "conservative" supporters. Ditto with calling Harper "Fatboy" or similar epithets for that matter by Liberal supporters.
No wonder our political discourse is so dismally wretched these days.
As for the ad, it's laughably poor. Negative, vitriolic attack ads are the sort of absolute rubbish all those faithful Conservative contributors are getting for their money... The sad part is that the "positive" spin presently being manufactured by the Harper government's propaganda factory is going to be paid for by you and I, the taxpayers, whether we support the Conservatives or not.
Blame Crash said...
AToryNoMore sounds more like AToryWhoNeverWas.
Just more of the same old liberal dishonesty.
2:08 AM
________________________________+_
Well that's right true believer. I never was a member of the party of 'no', just a life long federal Progressive Conservative.
Betcha, just betcha, braggadosio party boy, you wish the PC's were back!
Hey Blame Crash:
You don't seem to understand the purpose behind political ads.
As someone who has been writing them for more than 20 years, allow me to explain.
The purpose of an ad isn't to please partisans like you. After all, you would vote for a skunk if it had a CPC logo tattooed to its ass.
The purpose of an ad is to sway independent voters to your cause or in the case of negative ads away from your opponent's cause.
This Tory ad will fall short, for the reasons I have outlined.
If you really care about beating Ignatieff you should urge the Tories to come up with better ads.
Sometimes constructive criticism is better for a part than slavering, unthinking devotion.
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