Friday, February 04, 2011

The media and the Liberal Message

The Liberals seem to have realized their ability to ability to get their message directly out to the Canadian people is very limited indeed. Perhaps this is why the party has not bothered developing extensive talking points on the most central of issues. One is not going to find the Liberals, for example, saying anything interesting about corporate tax cuts. The party seems happy just to have the media mention their platform. Such a minimalist strategy extends to the ads they produced recently. One ad draws attention to the F 35 purchase and the other ad to the planned corporate tax cut. Nothing else is said in either ad.

Fair enough. Such a strategy does have its advantages. Besides, most talking points aimed at the lay public are both stupid and simplistic and are a complete waste of time. The less of them the better. However for the Liberals to abandon entire issues altogether is fool hardy. The Liberals need to start developing talking points aimed not at a broad audience but at political pundits, and political junkies. Above all else the party needs to challenge the legions of conservative columnists least various conservative position become received wisdom. Factual errors need to be pointed out and non sequiturs need to be mocked. Be vicious. Ignatieff talks about wanting to the be the party that basis its decisions on sound reasoning and science. A good way of establishing such a reputation is take a conservative pundit out to the wood shed on occasion. When conservative columnist retires the Liberals should share Trudeau's lament: "I'm sorry I won't have you to kick around any more."

9 comments:

Larry said...

It could be just that the Liberal message is unpalatable to Canadians.

Anonymous said...

you know they have a website, right, with news releases with talking points & rebuttals on virtually every issue of the day?

ridenrain said...

..or that the Liberal party of Canada is just too broke to buy their own air time.

Koby said...

As I said, "most talking points aimed at the lay public are both stupid and simplistic and are a complete waste of time." My hat goes off the Liberals for recognizing this to be so. It is too bad the Conservatives do not follow suit, but I guess the core support for each is different. The hallmark of a true Conservative supporter and what makes him truly unique is that he actually willing to drink the kool aid.

Koby said...

Yeah I know they have a website and this is what they have about the another round of corporate tax cuts.

"The Conservative plan is to put us another $6 billion into debt by giving more tax cuts to profitable corporations – when corporate taxes are already low."

How low is low? It would nice if they put Canada's corporate tax rate into context. At the very least point out that it lower than the States. How profitable is profitable? Corporate profits in Canada have long been higher than pretty much any where else. Pointing this out would greatly undermine the Conservative position.

Christ. You would think that Liberals would point out that the annual cost would be 6 billion a year and as such cost would quickly add up to one hell of a lot more than just 6 billion.

Anonymous said...

One of the problems is, the Liberal message is being seen in the UK, Spain, Ireland, Greece, California etc. Right now, the Liberal message is more social programs which means higher taxes.
Mr Harper has accomplished what every Liberal PM before him has done and that is, keep his core support and govern from the middle.
Longest minority govt in history, if he was a Liberal PM you'd be calling him a genuis.

Larry said...

One other thing...

The money that is being taxed IS the company's money. They earned it. I trust business to create jobs more than I trust government with the money.

How many times has the money been wasted?

Koby said...

"The money that is being taxed IS the company's money. They earned it."

Think before plagiarizing another dumb ass tea party bumper sticker.


I can assure you that business profits would be fall if there was no Police, Fire, roads, bridges, a heathly educated work force, etc etc.

Larry said...

I can assure you that business profits would be fall if there was no Police, Fire, roads, bridges, a heathly educated work force, etc etc.

What a dumb remark. If that's the best you can do, then give it up.