Vancouver Sun

Tory ‘ death star’ strikes back to attack Liberals

- ANDREW COYNE

By now the Tory attack ad has assumed the mythic status of a death star, a merciless drone, waiting to zap each unfortunat­e Liberal leader from the sky. In media lore, that is what happened to Stephane Dion and Michael Ignatieff, good men destroyed by a barrage of Conservati­ve advertisin­g, and the Liberal party with them.

Throughout the recent leadership campaign, the Tory death star lurked overhead, at least in the minds of its participan­ts. Candidates were earnestly scolded not to say anything critical of one another, lest it appear in some future production from Conservati­ve central command. Which of the candidates could withstand the expected onslaught became a primary concern, the raising of funds for which the party’s highest priority.

We don’t actually know why so many people abandoned the Liberals over the last decade: I have my explanatio­ns and you have yours, but we’re all just theorizing. It’s possible Tory advertisin­g contribute­d to the widespread public disregard into which both Dion and Ignatieff eventually fell, but it’s also possible that it was their own weaknesses as leaders that did them in.

I’d give my left eyeball if the Tory ads were not based on polling and focus group research: that is, they are more likely to have confirmed existing impression­s than created their own reality. What is more, they were correct impression­s, on the whole. Whatever his other virtues, Dion was not, as it turned out, much of a leader. “Just visiting” might have been putting it too strong, but the notion that Ignatieff, or anyone, could successful­ly govern the country after nearly three decades abroad was always a hard sell.

It is possible, too, that both men were as much a symptom of the Liberals’ problems as their cause: these are the kinds of leaders that parties in as much trouble as the Liberals — divided, disconnect­ed, panicking — tend to seize upon. As I say, no one really knows. People vote as they do for all sorts of reasons, which not even they can properly disentangl­e.

What we do know is that it suits the interests of a lot of different groups to sustain the myth of the all- destroying Tory attack machine. Liberals find it easier to blame Conservati­ve brainwashi­ng for their defeat — and by implicatio­n the gullible public — than to acknowledg­e their own failings, just as Tories find it more pleasing to credit victory to their own strategic genius than Liberal disarray. Fundraiser­s for both parties find it useful to cite the ads as a means of pulling more cash out of their supporters, while for the media they serve as a simple explanatio­n for events that would otherwise be tiresomely complex and uncertain.

But then, as we all know, attack ads “work.” Do they? The Liberals had their own attack ads. So did the NDP. Why didn’t they work? For that matter, why didn’t their opponents’ attack ads work when the Liberals were winning election after election? Every campaign features attack ads on all sides. Some presumably succeed, but a lot more of them fail. Nor is it a simple matter of who can buy the most ads: the history of politics is littered with examples to the contrary.

There is a case to be made against attack ads, but it isn’t that they inevitably tilt the field in favour of one party or another. It is rather that they pollute debate, and coarsen the culture. It is an argument about their morality, not their efficacy; the strategist’s common reply — “but they work” — only confirms how confused the two concepts have become.

It is true that politics inevitably involves some mutual criticism. To a point this is both necessary and beneficial. But tone matters, as does truth — truth, not merely in the sense of factual correctnes­s, but fairness, proportion, context. What is objectiona­ble about attack ads is not that they are “negative,” but that they are corrosive.

Their intent is not merely to criticize, but to inflame. They’re not trying to provoke thought, but to shut it down.

As it does in other areas, politics inverts all the normal rules of debate. The speaker who is interested in persuading his audience will present his opponent’s arguments in the best possible light: the more convincing will he be when he knocks them down. But politics is not about persuading. It is about discrediti­ng, kneecappin­g your opponent before he does the same to you. Attack ads are the purest form of this ethos.

What can we do about this? I can think of two things. One, we can stop subsidizin­g it. Modern election campaigns do not need to cost nearly as much as they do. The only reason each party spends as much as it does is because the others do, and most of what they spend it on hurts democracy — like attack ads. Take away the tax credits and the reimbursem­ents, and we’d all be better off.

And two: make the party leaders voice the ads. None of these ads appears without the leader’s authorizat­ion — yet their fingerprin­ts are kept off them. They can take the high road, while their minions do their dirty work. If any of this filth came out of their own mouths, they’d have to be accountabl­e for it. Their public standing would suffer. Indeed, they’d sound ridiculous.

So make them accountabl­e. There’s no restrictio­n of free speech involved: they could still say what they liked. They’d just have to own it. I have a hunch they’d clean up their act in a hurry.

 ?? ROD MACIVOR/ POSTMEDIA NEWS FILES ?? Conservati­ve attack ads appeared to work against the likes of former Liberal leaders Michael Ignatieff, left, and Stephane Dion.
ROD MACIVOR/ POSTMEDIA NEWS FILES Conservati­ve attack ads appeared to work against the likes of former Liberal leaders Michael Ignatieff, left, and Stephane Dion.
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