Election 2008: Analysis of NDP’s First Ad

During this upcoming campaign, I’m going to try to do two different things on top of commenting on the comings and goings on the campaign trail: I’ll be writing a weekly series on what issues we Canadians should really be addressing during the campaign, but don’t, and I’ll be offering my analysis of the media, particularly new media, used by the parties that are trying to buy your vote with their images and words.

To star things off, the NDP has put out a new ad squarely aimed at the Prime Minister, found here. It’s an interesting NDP add on a few fronts:

First, it marks a departure by Jack Layton’s team from his five-year strategy of primarily attacking the Liberals in the hopes of replacing the Grits as the Official Opposition. I’m not sure that I see this wisdom in this strategy, as the last two elections, despite what the media would say, were good for the NDP and it was obviously allowing them to make gains in areas like Hamilton, Montreal and other gritty, working class cities. Oshawa, other parts of Toronto and Montreal, and east Nova Scotia are on their radar today only because the NDP has been able to make a compelling argument that the Liberals aren’t doing enough to oppose the Tories. Granted, the Greens are somewhat muddling Layton’s plans by introducing a new “anybody-but-the-rest” party, and one that is over-obsessive about the environment too, but Jack! wasn’t going to find his votes in urbane, eco-hugging neighbourhoods anyway; he was going to find them in the manufacturing centres and in areas where his efforts to support the Palestinians and Muslims were starting to make a difference.

Next, it needs to be said for the NDP: they’ve really improved their ability to create attractive, high-quality media. In an age with video makers on every PC and Macs built to create fancy footage, there’s no excuse. Still, kudos to the socialists to make something light years ahead of their infamously South Park-like ads that ran in 2000.

On the impact front, I think that the NDP might be doing themselves more harm than good on this one. In 1990, the Ontario PCs released an ad attacking then-Liberal Premier David Peterson that was very effective in convincing the public that Peterson was not worthy of reelection. What the ad didn’t do though is suggest the alternative, something that the Tories pre-supposed they would be in the minds of voters anyway. The result? The NDP earned 37% of returns to become a majority government; the PCs were devastated, only gaining a handful in the high-teens. In this ad, the NDP isn’t doing such a good job in promoting themselves as the only real alternative to the Conservatives — this leaves the notion wide open for the Liberals to snatch up and use themselves. The attacks used in the ad aren’t so great either if you consider the fact that most voters aren’t as adverse to tax cuts as the Dippers are. The ad also could be interpreted to reinforce the reputation that the Tories have as being best able to whether us through this economic storm; a flaw that could help the government. In other words, the ad only speaks to the NDP base, which as we’ve seen before, is big enough to get the party around 10 seats.

Finally, the NDP really needs to ditch the “N”, and rename itself the “Democrats”. If you ever get to watch Question Period, the caucus that looks the most grey is the NDP. The party itself is about to hit its 50th anniversary and its strategists have come up with any sort of “third way” plan that would constitute any sort of newness in the party’s vision. So how is the party new exactly?