Andrew Potter asks if the Libs' latest attempt to sell Stephane Dion's leadership is the worst political ad ever made. But the answer looks to me to depend what the Libs do with the ad.
If they actually plan to put the ad on the airwaves based on the hope that it'll improve Dion's standing with the general public, then the answer is an unqualified "yes". Indeed, the use of a clip which appears particularly clumsy even for Dion makes it seem as if the Cons weren't the only party to have had an ironic call to vote against them distributed in their name.
But what if the Libs simply leave the ad online where it likely won't be seen by anybody who isn't already keenly interested in the election? In that case, its main effect might be to lower expectations for the debates to the point where a single coherent sentence is seen as a triumph for Dion. And a narrative of "Dion performs better than expected" might be the most the Libs can hope for at this point.
Of course, the problem with that strategy is that Canadians may understandably expect more than that from the leader of a party whose other main strategy is to scream that Canadians don't have any other choice but themselves. And with even one of the Libs' brightest partisans suggesting the party may need a decade on the sidelines to get its act together, there's all the more reason for Canadians to turn elsewhere to stop and reverse the Harper agenda in the meantime.
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