The permanent campaign
Susan’s yarn, here, on the (smart) Rae decision to get tough. Overdue.
Nay-sayers will say it’s closing the barn door after the horse has fled, etc., but that’s not the problem. The problem is that the Reformatories’ anti-Dion and anti-Ignatieff ads served to define Dion and Ignatieff before they could define themselves.
That’ll be the problem, once again, in 2013 or so: the Grits will pick another shiny new leader, and the Cons will spend millions to smear him/her before the election.
The Reformatory leader is a known quantity; the Grit leader-to-be isn’t. Attack ads always work best with the latter, not the former.