Dix’s campaign turned negative too late in the game: expert
Posted May 16, 2013 8:07 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – BC is accused of having one of the most toxic political scenes in the country and it was apparent during the run-up to the provincial election.
One expert says being positive during a campaign will almost never work; that’s been the speculation as to why the NDP lost Tuesday night.
Leader Adrian Dix turned negative too late in the game, says SFU political scientist Marjorie Cohen. She adds the negative attack ads also seemed to suit Christy Clark more than Dix.
“Politicians have to go with their own personality and that suits [Clark’s] personality. I don’t think it would have suited Dix’s personality and it wouldn’t have gone over very well,” she tells us.
She says something that helped Clark was that whenever she said something negative, she did so with a smile, and that’s what people remembered when they marked their “X.”
However, Cohen admires Dix for trying to stay away from personal attacks. “It would be really good to have people focusing more on the issues than on really critical kinds of things, which can often be very misleading. But… he finished last.”
Cohen doesn’t think the attack ads were the only factor in the NDP’s loss; she says the collapse of the BC Conservatives, the Greens winning a seat, and the lack of the youth vote all played a part.
