Rob Ford – who, by the by, was the only mayoralty candidate to contact me during my recent run-in with the underside of a bus – is facing a huge health challenge.  You know that.

What you don’t know, perhaps, is that I had two epiphanies last night.  Epiphany One, I was disgusted and appalled by the frankly evil things being said about Rob Ford’s predicament on Twitter.  I said so, and I wasn’t alone.  I firmly believe, this morning, that some of the things being said by self-described “progressives” will propel many, many sympathetic/empathetic voters into supporting Rob Ford again.  It was that bad.

Epiphany Two – and I said this to myself, as I lay there sleepless and as the rest of you slept like babies – was the following: “Has something like this happened before?”

Well, yes, of course.  It has.  And it had a dramatic and extraordinary effect in both cases, one named Layton (who was being dismissed as a  glib used car salesman until he got sick), and one named Bouchard (who was being reviled as a Benedict Arnold-nation-destroyer until he got sick).

Listen to my friends McLoughlin, Gauthier and Cobb, from a 2011 Citizen story:

“…the pundits all underestimated the Tao of Jack and his Walking Stick — the crutch that has become a Churchillian-like symbol brandished with increased frequency in Layton’s public battles against his political enemies.

“It looked like the beginning of the end of his political career,” said Ottawa communications specialist Barry McLoughlin. “We saw two things happen to him back to back, that showed his humanity. We saw him on our screens looking gaunt, older, frail and very vulnerable.”

Then, adds McLoughlin, Layton suddenly connected with Canadians in a deeper way.

“He struck an emotional chord just by the way he faced up to his setbacks and went about his work. He appeared in the House of Commons after his hip surgery and showed he was a fighter. People developed an emotional relationship with him that wasn’t there before.”

Something similar happened between Quebecers and Lucien Bouchard when the former Bloc Quebecois leader contracted flesh-eating disease in 1994, added McLoughlin.

“It’s not about the cane,” he said, “but about the humanity it shows.”

Bernard Gauthier, a communications and audience research specialist at Delta Media in Ottawa says the walking stick has become a defining element for Layton.

“It’s become part of the Jack Layton brand, along with his white moustache,” said Gauthier. “I said at the beginning of the campaign that the walking stick will go one of two ways for Jack Layton: it will hinder him because it could suggest to people that he is not at the peak of health or it will engage people.

“It’s made him more endearing and empathetic.”

At this point, it will be very difficult for anyone to call Rob Ford names anymore, as John Tory has been doing.  That’s one thing.

This is the other: all that Rob Ford need do is show up – and look vulnerable and human and brave, as Layton and Bouchard did – and something like this will happen:

He will win.

 

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Picture posted by Banksy.

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It couldn’t be.  Could it?

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It was really, really bad.

My reaction:

 

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Reporter Andy Radia asked me what I thought about Tom Mulcair, the (aptly named) NDP retreat, blah blah blah.  My response, for your edification:

“Mulcair’s big problem can be summed up in three words: Mulcair isn’t Layton.

For good or bad, who your leader is plays a big, big role in political decision-making. And folks just don’t like Tom as much as they liked Jack.

I’ve just spent several months working with some impressive New Democrats on a municipal campaign. (It was an interesting, but not entirely gratifying, experiment.) A lot of them are good, smart people. But they all know that the Liberal brand is experiencing a comeback across Canada – in BC, in Nova Scotia, in Ontario, in Quebec. If they had something to stop the Liberal resurgence, they would have used it by now. They haven’t.

The New Democrats aren’t going to fall back to their traditional support levels – I think there’s an excellent chance they will drop even below that.

Canadians have been on the right side of the road for about a decade. They’re now moving back to the middle, not the left. And I don’t think Mulcair or Harper have any ideas about how to stop it.”

UPDATE: And Andy’s story is here.

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This is perhaps the shittiest ad they have produced to date, and that’s saying something. We’ll be talking about this on Sun News today, but here’s a quick summary of what’s wrong with it:

• He doesn’t look Prime Ministerial – no tie, hands in pockets, etc.
• His “God bless Canada” closer sounds like he was barely awake when he said it – no passion
• The crowd looks pretty all-white and all-old
• The cutaway footage they use is about as cliche as you can get…
• …and there are no people in the B roll – just buildings and a flag

The main problem, however, is this: the key message – “We’re better off with Harper” – is awful.  It sounds a lot like “Stay with the spouse you don’t love anymore, who you don’t want to be with anymore, because it’s probably better than the alternatives. We think.”

If this is all you’ve got, Con boys and girls, you are done like dinner.  You are now officially in a fight for your lives.  You should consider acting like it.

 

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You know, if Tom wasn’t running, I think I would.

Comment away!

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Fifty years ago on Sunday, politics was changed forever.

It begins quietly, with a little girl. She’s in a field somewhere, and she has long, straight hair, and big eyes. She can be no more than three or four years old.

She’s holding a daisy. In a child’s singsong voice, she counts the petals as she removes them. “One, two, three, four, five,” she says, softly.

She stops and looks up, frightened. A man’s echoing voice starts to count. As he does, the camera moves closer. “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four,” he says, and all that can be seen are the child’s eyes, which are afraid. The shot moves into the dark centre of her eye.

Then there is an explosion — a huge, lingering explosion — and the child’s iris is filled with a grainy image of an atomic bomb being detonated. As the mushroom cloud reaches upward, another voice is heard: the voice of Lyndon B. Johnson, president of the United States.

“These are the stakes,” he says in his Texas twang. “To make a world in which all of God’s children can live, or to go into the dark.” Pause. “We must either love each other, or we must die.”

The screen goes black, and a few words appear in white: “Vote for President Johnson on November 3.” Then the last voice-over: “Vote for President Johnson on November 3. The stakes are too high for you to stay home.”

Ran once, that ad did, on September 7, 1964. But everyone involved modern politics agrees: it changed everything.

Some say the ‘Daisy’ ad represented the start of attack ads. But it’s wrong to suggest that ‘Daisy’ is akin to the despicable Jean Chrétien “face” ad, produced, in part, by Toronto mayoralty candidate John Tory. That was just a vicious, empty-headed attack on the Liberal leader’s facial paralysis, and had nothing to do with policy. ‘Daisy,’ on the other hand, did not mention once the name of President Johnson’s opponent, but it was all about a policy: nuclear deterrence.

It led to Johnson’s re-election, and the evisceration at the polls of Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, whose name was not mentioned once in the ad. And, as noted, it changed politics.

As the fiftieth anniversary of ‘Daisy’ is marked – about whom, full disclosure, I named my own consulting firm! – it is hard not to wonder what ‘Daisy’ equivalent the Conservative Party wishes to unleash on Liberal leader Justin Trudeau.

Since he became Liberal leader in April 2013, the Harper Cons have produced a barrage of attack ads about Trudeau. None have had a measureable effect. In almost every poll taken since April 2013, Trudeau has enjoyed a significant lead.

‘Daisy’ worked, its creator Tony Schwartz later told me, because it “surfaced” pre-existing emotions about Goldwater. It gave visual expression to what they already felt.

So what, then, can the Conservatives do to avoid being wiped out by Trudeau? The same polls that show him ahead also show Canadians – including Liberal voters – have some misgivings about his experience and judgment. Could a Daisy-style ad “surface” those worries, and turn the tide against the Grits?

Maybe. Perhaps. But the fact is that Harper has been highlighting Trudeau’s relative inexperience and judgment for months – in ads, in speeches, in mailings, in every scrum. None of it has worked.

‘Daisy’ worked because it evoked profound emotions about a matter of life and death. Can Harper persuade skeptical Canadians that Trudeau’s judgment is a matter of life and death, too?

It’s unlikely. So, as the Conservatives continue frantically casting about for their own ‘Daisy,’ one thing cannot be denied:

Time is running out.

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A friendly inquiry this morning about how many people come to my web site elicited this response: “I don’t know.” So I decided ask the guy who would, from Team Propellerhead.

His response:

“In the last year you had 2.2 million page views– spread over 1.3 million sessions, and 355,000 individual users.

Since we’ve been keeping records (2008) there have been 13 million page views, 8.3 million sessions, 1.7 million users. Though number of users over such a long period can’t be very accurate given how many IPs circulate dynamically.”

In other words, the numbers really aren’t that big, given that many are repeat customers. But, overall, encouraging.

I really should get around to accepting advertising, eh? Maybe I could actually retire or something.

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