The Conservatives are using the final week of the election campaign to run advertisements where older men are telling other older men to vote for the party — a closing argument that would have been unthinkable only months ago, political advertising experts say.
In new television ads that are airing regularly during the heavily watched NHL playoffs, the Conservatives are playing one spot in which two seniors are golfing and discussing how tough life is for their children, and another where former prime minister Stephen Harper endorses Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre.
Neither commercial shows images of Poilievre.
“We’re living in an upside-down world this campaign. Voters that were bedrock Conservative voters in the Harper era now need to be won over. And these are the boomers, 50-plus males,” said Dennis Matthews, president of Creative Currency and a former advertising adviser to Harper.
I definitely don’t disagree with your point, and while I didn’t think from your comment that you’d benefit from a reminder of what kind of person Harper is, some people reading these comments might not be as familiar with him.
It’s all too easy to fall into the trap of rehabilitating awful politicians from the past when faced with the new generation of awful politicians. I’ve seen way too many people, even progressives, yearn for the George W. Bush years in the face of the Trump presidency. Like sure, Trump (or Poilievre) might be worse, but that doesn’t mean Bush (or Harper) weren’t/aren’t awful.