Going negative hard and early in a campaign is a dangerous tactic

The NDP instituted a subtle, but significant shift, in their election campaigning the past few days so subtle you probably didn't give it much thought.

On Tuesday, it was NDP Leader Rachel Notley who was aggressively attacking United Conservative Leader Jason Kenney as a "cheat" who stole his party's leadership race in 2017 and then "lied" about it.

On Tuesday, the anti-Kenney baton (truncheon?) was passed along to NDP enforcer Sarah Hoffman who unveiled an attack campaign against Kenney.

"I believe Jason Kenney's unfit to be premier of Alberta and that Albertans deserve to know who the real Jason Kenney is," declared Hoffman, who then unveiled a 10-minute attack "documentary" against Kenney on Thursday.

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This tag-teaming was no accident or coincidence. It's a tactic to keep Notley insulated from the worst of the mud-slinging that often results in blowback on the mud-slinger.

Going negative hard and early in a campaign is a dangerous tactic.

Gladiatorial arena

The NDP is happy to have Notley take jabs at Kenney, but they don't want her climbing into the gladiatorial arena with sword and dagger in hand.

Better to leave the aggressiveness to Hoffman, an experienced political operative and cabinet minister, who has been the NDP's political equivalent of a flame thrower the past four years.

Want someone burned, send in Hoffman (of course, she has occasionally singed herself with badly worded insults involving "sewer rats.").

But Hoffman, and the NDP, could easily end up looking desperate if they ramp up their personal attacks against Kenney without new information. Or if they start to complain that the news media is not picking up the anti-Kenney mantle.

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Or if they start having Notley take over from Hoffman as the front-line bruiser.

If they discover this mixed martial arts campaign isn't working, they might want to climb out of the ring and pivot to a more positive campaign rather than double down and do a pile-on.

Right now, Notley is the party's beacon of hope, its ray of sunshine. In the 2015 election, Notley was so cheerful and optimistic her campaign slogan could have been a smiley face.

Conversely, at the time, even though then-Progressive Conservative leader (and premier) Jim Prentice did not deliberately go negative against Notley, he did run a negative campaign of sorts.

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Prentice began what one wag in the news media dubbed his "Grim Jim" routine, emphasizing the economic troubles facing the province, suggesting public-sector workers were overpaid, complaining about previous premiers, and telling Albertans to look in the mirror for those responsible for the mess.

On the eve of the election, Prentice even introduced a bad-news budget that cut spending and raised taxes.

Voters don't like pessimism from their politicians during election campaigns. They punished Prentice for the sin of negativity (as well as for a litany of other sins committed by a worn-out PC party). They want so much sunny optimism they have to wear shades to vote.

And back in 2015 Notley was positively radiant. Albertans loved Notley's exuberance and cheerfulness and for the first time in Alberta's history elected a NDP government.

The federal Liberals under Justin Trudeau were so impressed by her surprise win that they built and then rode their own "sunny ways" bandwagon to victory in October 2015.

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Brian Topp, the director of the NDP's election war room in 2015 (who is helping again this time), said at the time, "people look at her and say: 'I trust you.' We (the party) didn't make that happen, she did."

Now, even though public opinion polls indicate a majority of Albertans have a less than sunny opinion of the NDP, Notley remains relatively popular.

"Alberta is for all of us," said Notley this week. "One Alberta. Not just for the few. The politics of love, hope and optimism always trumps the politics of anger, division and fear."

Notley is once again offering a positive vision.

That's why the party cannot afford to have their leader replace her vim and vigour with venom.

A leader who talks about "love, hope and optimism" cannot be the one blowtorching the opponents.

Hello Hoffman.

The video

The attack ads released this week use two-decades-old video of Kenney when he was an MP bragging about how, as a university student in San Francisco in 1989, he helped overturn a law giving equal rights to same sex relationships. Critics, including the NDP, have said this effectively barred same sex couples from hospital visitation rights during the 1980s AIDS epidemic.

Kenney does look disturbingly smug explaining how he, as president of the pro-life group on campus, had "helped to lead an ultimately successful initiative petition which led to a referendum which overturned the first gay spousal law in North America."

On Thursday, Hoffman unveiled a NDP-directed short film that recently talked to people in San Francisco who were, and still are, dealing with the pain of the actions of anti-gay activists such as Kenney.

The NDP argues Kenney's actions 30 years ago are relevant today, that they speak to the matter of character. Notley calls his actions "cruel." Kenney has since said he regrets the episode in his life and dismisses it as the actions of a "teenager" (even though he was 21 in 1989).

"To be clear, contrary to the attacks of my political opponents, my opposition to the domestic partners ordinance when I was a teenager in the 1980s was not based on a desire to limit partners from visiting their loved ones in hospitals, but over concerns about the legal implication for the definition of marriage," Kenney said in a recent interview with a Calgary-based online magazine, The Sprawl.

The ads this week play into an NDP narrative that Kenney is not fit to be premier, that his social conservative activism of the past do not fit comfortably into the Alberta of today.

The NDP is sailing in dangerous waters.

A risky tactic

The NDP is going full-on anti-Kenney because they can't easily campaign on the economy or jobs or pipelines. The economy is slowing down, unemployment is rising, and the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion is stalled.

But it's a risky tactic, one that could backfire if Albertans don't believe the Kenney of 2019 is the same Kenney of 20 or 30 years ago. And it's a tactic that smacks of desperation and makes them look as if they are the opposition party campaigning to overthrow a UCP government.

What's the voter to make of this? Notley and the NDP government are all about "love, hope and optimism" but the NDP campaign is heavy on "anger, division and fear."

The danger for the NDP is that by going too nasty and negative against Kenney, he could end up looking like the victim of New Democratic bullying. Oh, the irony.

At this point, with public opinion polls the way they are, the NDP probably can't afford not to go after Kenney with hammer and tong.

The party just doesn't want Notley's cheery fingerprints on such nasty weapons.