Sunday, May 10, 2009

Catching up to the Liberal side of the campaign with the Northern Connector


If ever the current government of BC was to look for a print version to resemble the legendary days of Pravda, then perhaps the Northern Connector might wish to offer up its services.

The Friday edition of the weekly flyer wrap and capsule of sporadic regional news, arrived at local doorsteps chock full of advertisements declaring that the Liberal party of BC was seemingly the only offering available to save the province from the hordes...

And by far the most attention and benefit from the world of paid political advertising went to the Liberal candidate for the North Coast campaign, Herb Pond. The May 8th edition featured both ads from the Liberal party and others from clearly on board support groups, offering up the latest word on what the voter should consider on election day.

Page two featured an ad advising that Mr. Pond was "instrumental" in securing funding for the cruise ship and container facilities (a tad creative in description) stressing the job angle, though in six years of the last two councils, there were a good number of jobs that went out of town and with them the folks that lived here.

Page ten had a generic ad suggesting that not voting for Liberals leaves the provinces' jobs potential at risk, though there wasn't much to back up that suggestion.

Page eleven is a declaration from the Independent Power Producers that the NDP would freeze investment and continue to import dirty coal power from the US, though they don't outline if and where this process currently takes place

Page thirteen has the save the cost of beer ad we made note of earlier this weekend, enough said on the silliness of that addition to the electoral debate...

Page fourteen is a full page ad for Mr. Pond detailing that the future for Prince Rupert is in port development, this of course despite the fact that the current Liberals are spending much more on Delta Port than Fairview, it again stresses how Mr. Pond "delivered" phase one though it doesn't outline his involvement other than speaking in favour of it..

Page twenty four offered up a more humble request for votes from Donny Van Dyk in Terrace, no bold declarations in that one just your standard Liberal stump speech, not negative just informative.

We're not sure who decided that the Pond campaign had to go all thermo nuclear in these final days, outlining how the competition (Mr. Coons) is all negative you know, by er, ah, going negative, but it seems a foolish gambit that may annoy more voters than it attracts.

We suspect that most voters on the North coast would rather have had Mr Pond outline what he believed he could offer to the riding; what he feels he could achieve for our long term success. Instead we mainly get generalities, with little detail or declaration of his core beliefs on many of the current topics.

He may not ever actually achieve any of his plans or wishes should he be elected on Tuesday, but at least we would know what and where he stands, rather than these somewhat goofy and sometimes outright shaded declarations featuring less than thorough documentation to back up the rhetoric...

Then again the Liberals seem to have spent a lot of energy on a newspaper that most people toss into the recycling box the moment that they get it. So that perhaps shows their basic knowledge of how best to get the message out and with it will come the applicable results when the votes get counted Tuesday evening.

The wall to wall Liberal advertorials took up a fair amount of lineage in the twenty four pages of the Connector, interestingly enough there was not one ad for either of the other two parties competing in this North Coast election campaign.

When it comes to fiscal sensibility and best bang for your advertising buck, we wonder if perhaps they don't know something that the Liberals didn't?

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