Ready or not, Liberals are going to be smiling on Oct. 19

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This article was published 12/10/2015 (3657 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — In the latest Liberal campaign ad, Leader Justin Trudeau is seen speaking to 7,000 flag-waving, red-poster carrying supporters at a raucous campaign rally in Brampton, Ont.

After he delivers some of his stump speech lines with people screaming and smiling around him, the screen turns to red and single word in white print on a red background appears in the middle.

“Ready.”

It is the latest Liberal ad responding to what voters have been told about Trudeau for the last 2.5 years. That he is “just not ready.”

But after 10 weeks of campaigning, Trudeau seems to be convincing more people every day that just isn’t true.

Ten weeks ago, the idea Trudeau could be going into the final week of this campaign with a chance to win was inconceivable, even to most Liberals.

But that chance is real enough some people are even now adding up the Liberal cabinet possibilities.

Nothing is certain. The Liberal lead is not big, and the Conservative machine is never to be underestimated. Regional races are tight and will tell the story of this game. Prime Minister Stephen Harper is very much still in this game.

But if Harper has to relinquish the keys to 24 Sussex to a Trudeau — which some will say is possibly Harper’s biggest nightmare scenario in an election loss — he can in many ways look to his own party for the reason.

“They lowered the expectations so much the fact (Trudeau has) been competent has translated into outstanding,” said Tim Powers, a Conservative strategist and vice-chair of Summa Strategies. “Expectation management has just been awful.”

The ad campaign against Trudeau, pegging him as “just not ready,” was relentless and effective. By the time Harper called the election Aug. 2, the Liberals were solidly in third place. The NDP generally was in the lead, a few points ahead of the Conservatives.

And yet the Conservatives still did not turn their sights to Team Orange. They kept at it against Trudeau.

Two days after the election launch, chief Conservative spokesman Kory Teneycke said Trudeau didn’t have to do very much at all in the first leader’s debate in order for people to think he did well.

“I think that if he comes on stage with his pants on, he will probably exceed expectations,” Teneycke told reporters at a campaign stop on Aug. 4.

Amazingly enough, Trudeau did remember to wear pants, and also showed that the weekly debating practices he undertook for months beforehand paid off. Meanwhile, Mulcair, who had raised the expectations on his own performance to inordinate heights with comments such as “I’m going to wipe the floor” with Trudeau, didn’t meet his bar.

The Conservatives calculated that over an 11-week campaign, Trudeau was sure to step into some muck as he has in the past.

But it didn’t happen. Trudeau hasn’t been perfect. He hasn’t even been outstanding. But when expectations are lowered so much, even a good performance looks a lot better.

And Trudeau has improved.

“I absolutely believe he strengthened and grew into the role,” said Greg MacEachern, a former aide to late Manitoba cabinet minister Reg Alcock and now a government strategist with Environics Communications.

Trudeau has learned to stick to his script. The messages were more clear and more well-defined.

The Liberals have modernized their operations from fundraising to volunteer co-ordination to door knocking. They have data to tell them what voters are responding to and what they are not. They are more disciplined than in the past.

They also turned conventional wisdom on its head. They promised to run a deficit, which was supposed to be anathema in Canadian politics. Yet that was a bit of a turning point in this campaign because it made the Liberals stand out.

They also ran a campaign ad directly responding to the “just not ready” attacks.

MacEachern said he would never advise a client to repeat an attack in an ad but the Liberals managed to do so effectively.

He isn’t counting the chickens yet, noting one of the biggest mistakes the NDP may have made in this election was believing and campaigning as if it were the front runner when it was really not.

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The Conservatives and NDP will spend the next week in an air war against Trudeau trying to offset the momentum the Liberals appear to have.

MacEachern said the Liberals have to ignore that and stay on message.

The Liberals will spend the final week pushing for votes in Conservative and NDP ridings, and continue an appeal to soft Conservative voters who are still on the fence about where to mark their vote.

Whatever happens on Oct. 19, the Liberals are likely to be smiling at the end of the day. It is almost certain to be the first election in 15 years in which they walk away with more seats than they started.

mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca