Via Negativa, or It's All Over Now, Baby Blue

      Yes, it's official: the Liberals have now decided to lose the election. I'm not talking about the Liberals simply not getting enough votes to win either a minority or a majority government; I'm talking about the decision by the Prime Minister's handlers to go starkly, and desperately, negative with attack ads in the vain hope of scaring Canadians away from voting for Stephen Harper and the Conservatives. Paul Martin can probably start packing his belongings out of 24 Sussex Drive now. Historically, such negative campaigning backfires in Canada, inflicting more damage on the perpetrators than the targets. Does anyone remember Kim Campbell's ridiculously offensive ads making fun of Jean Chrétien's face? Canadians tend to respond very negatively to negative ads (how's that for a tautology!), viewing them as cheap, indecorous and cynical, and Canadians have an unspoken tradition of punishing such tactics, because they seem to violate a basic principle of fair-play. As a result, Canadians very often react to this sort of thing with contempt, the implied response being something akin to Well, you may say these guys are bad, but at least they are NOT YOU. Really, I don't know what David Herle and the Earnscliffe goons are thinking. When these ads come out, I'm willing to bet support for the Conservatives will solidify rather than erode, and the already burgeoning antipathy for the Liberals will finally find a tangible shape, that of the proverbial straw that'll break the camel's back. Unless Mr Martin nixes Herle's plans, he'll have effectively signed his own political death-warrant-- and committed himself to the junk-heap of history's coulda-woulda-shoulda-beens. This decision by Martin's organizers may indeed be the most blisteringly stupid decision of the election, and quite possibly of the decade. I guess now I'm going to have to get used to saying-- and it's a difficult task, I assure you-- Prime Minister Harper. Prime. Minister. Harper. I never thought I'd have to say that. Now it's more or less a done-deal that we're all going to have to learn to say it. That fat lady's about to sing-- and her name is David Herle. Goodnight, sweetheart, / It's time to go.... shadoobydoooo....