Lefties take a page out of the Harper playbook with new anti–Tim Hudak attack ad

Attack ads are by no means new in Canadian politics, but the Harper Tories’ slice-and-dice jobs on Michael Ignatieff and Stéphane Dion represent a new generation of the old political weapon. Two aspects make the new ads stand out (and damn effective): the precision with which they target the electorate’s underlying misgivings about a given leader, and that they are released months before an election campaign even begins. Now it looks like these same tactics are being taken up by Ontario political advocacy group Working Families. The Star has posted the organization’s new attack ad on its site. The target? Tim Hudak, who is portrayed as a Bay Street suck-up who ran the province into the ground with Mike Harris. Watch it above, and witness the new tone of Canadian politics, now present from the left and the right. Of course, when it works this well, it’s hard to blame them.

• Attack ad targets Tim Hudak [Toronto Star]