I'm sure you've all heard Ignatieff say this a thousand times by now. From where? Well from every ad the Tories put out this federal election.
My heart kind of wrenches every time one of these commercials comes on. My understanding of political campaigning, which is very little, tells me that parties should be instilling confidence in Canadians so they'll give you their trust and their vote. But it seems like all the Tories and Liberals are doing is trying to knock each other down a peg. They're not trying to one-up each other, promising bigger and better things. They're not trying to make us excited about change or make us realize how things are great the way they are. They're just trying to turn us away from the other.
I'm not saying this isn't an effective tactic. If you can deter someone from voting for a different party, there's a better chance they'll vote for you. But I think if you focus on showing Canadians what you plan to bring to the table and how it's going to be better for the country as a whole, they won't even care about what the other guys are doing.
Basically I just think this game of ad hominem is tacky and doesn't require much effort at all.
So, please remember to go vote this election day and make it count.
If only it were a beauty contest...
One of my friends summed it up perfectly: a "Seinfeld election." An election about nothing. Nobody's said a word about changes to existing policies or institutions. It's all about how they plan to spend our money. They don't get us excited about change because there's no change to get excited about. That's why I keep saying American politics is better than Canadian politics: The Americans are constantly seeking to self-improve through big ideas, whereas we seem to prefer complacency and incrementalism. It's pathetic.
ReplyDeleteYou're absolutely correct that the leaders SHOULD be shilling for themselves instead of against each other. If they took a few PR tips from us CreComms, I guarantee we'd be a lot less cynical about them.
Leave it to you to comment on my only post about politics, Jess. Haha. Thanks.
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