Cup Of Mudslinging

Here's an ad sent to me by my local Conservative candidate. 

I'm not even sure where to begin.  The first thing I noticed is the "Career Politician" label they've put on Mr. Mulcair.  So now the Tories are criticizing one of their competitors over his lack of experience, and criticizing the other for having too much experience.  And of course, Mulcair and Harper have spent about the same amount of time in elected office.

But more than anything, I keep trying to imagine the planning that went into such an ad.  For instance, you know that actual adults with a great deal of education actually had a conversation about whether the coffee stain would be over-the-top.  They asked, how can we make Mulcair look as unprofessional as possible? 

We could write it in crayon, but that would come off as mean.  Let's go with the coffee stain.

Oh, but could that hurt us, make him sound like a man of the people, someone for the Tim Hortons crowd?  

Good point, we'll have to make it look like it came from a coffee cup, not a Tim's takeout cup.

I'm not one of those naive people who believes that negative ads don't work. But I'm wondering why this is the one type of advertising where subtlety goes out the window.  Even that semi-racist Hyundai ad wasn't this vicious with its depiction of its competitors (for instance, they weren't shown wearing stained clothing.)  And that ad was about as vicious as normal advertising gets.  It could be that they have less time to get their message across.  But then, the ads the Conservatives run between elections hit just as hard. So maybe someday we'll have parties using long-term brand-building strategies.  I think it would be much easier to take elections if they were just like reliving the 1980's cola war.