The road to positive

The Sask Party's Worst Ad Ever has found its way into Saskatchewan's media, with Murray Mandryk in particular raising many of the same questions I pointed out about the ads. But Mandryk's focus on a negative message around Lingenfelter looks to miss at least part of the picture:

That said, there is something about Lingenfelter's repeated use of a word like "loser" that might just be reinforcing that impression the public has of him. It sounds school-yard juvenile at best -- especially so when applied to a serving premier. And, coming from an older, opposition politician, it not only suggests meanness and anger, but also a certain arrogance and sense of entitlement.
...
Rather than play into the Sask. Party's hands by reinforcing the negative perception voters have of him, Lingenfelter should steal a bit of Wall's script which usually contains a healthy dose of "aw shucks" humility.

What Lingenfelter probably needs to do in 2010 is offer a bit of a mea culpa -- especially within his own party where there doesn't yet seem to be a 100-per-cent buy-in of his leadership. Maybe more important than the policy review at the NDP's March convention would be a leader's speech acknowledging that he, too, has made mistakes, but has learned from them.

Lingenfelter would be well served to take the criticisms head on -- especially the mostly unspoken ones, of which there remain many.

Leaving aside Mandryk's question about "buy-in" which seems misplaced to me, I'd think there's little room for doubt that Lingenfelter will need to build a more positive impression with the general public by the 2011 election. But there are a couple of different ways to get there - and Mandryk seems to me to be suggesting by far the more treacherous one.

Sure, it's open to Lingenfelter to try to substantially change his behaviour immediately in response to Sask Party criticism. But a sudden reversal of course would be bound to call Lingenfelter's sincerity into doubt - with the media likely to be no less skeptical than the Sask Party. And while trying to do a Wall impersonation, Lingenfelter would have to abandon the strengths he's able to build on based on his current image.

So what's the alternative? To start with, Lingenfelter can work with the positive aspects of the persona he already carries. The obvious flip side of the Sask Party's anger is that Lingenfelter offers up blunt critiques which have proven correct in the past, which would seem to fit nicely with the overall message which gives the NDP its best chance of cutting into Wall's public support between now and 2011. So for now, Lingenfelter may be best off reinforcing the up side of negative - particularly at a time when the province's mood is increasingly on his side.

That said, Lingenfelter will have plenty of chances to start injecting more positive content into his public image over the next year and a half without radically reversing course all at once. A speech at the NDP convention might well be one such time (though I'm not sure how a discussion which effectively dwells on Lingenfelter's own negatives would somehow serve to make Lingenfelter appear more positive). But again, the policy development process looks to be the most important opportunity in this area: if Lingenfelter is seen to be an active participant, listening to creative ideas and enthusiastically adopting them on behalf of his party, then it'll be impossible for Wall to maintain a message that Lingenfelter is all negative.

In effect, the better course for Lingenfelter seems to be to keep expectations low for now while laying the groundwork for a positive message which will fit more comfortably with his established impressions by the time voters start paying close attention to the campaign. Ideally, that would leave the Sask Party still complaining about Lingenfelter's negativity in the fall of 2011 - even as the media and the general public start commenting that maybe Lingenfelter isn't as much of a downer as he's made out to be.

In sum, while Lingenfelter will need to deal with the criticisms eventually, the best means of doing that is by actually proving them wrong over time - not by trying to make a single jarring change in course which will only reinforce the Sask Party message while calling his sincerity into doubt.