David Herle's worst political nightmare was coming true.
It was 2004, and the expectations for Paul Martin's first campaign as the new Liberal leader were sky high. Predictions of 200 seats will buzzing around Ottawa. But the campaign got off to a disastrous start, and as national co-chair, that made it David Herle's problem.
All the focus groups and polling were coming back with the same message: it's time for a change. It's time to punish the Liberals for the sponsorship scandal. (And a new health care levy brought in by Martin's provincial cousins in Ontario wasn't helping.)
Liberal votes were bleeding to the Conservatives' Stephen Harper on a daily basis.
Then the Liberal brain trust was presented with an ad simply called "The Multi-scene Manifesto." It was tough. Really tough. It described a Canada that Canadians wouldn't recognize if Harper were to become prime minister.
"The reaction from focus groups was strong and clear," Herle told the Canadian Club on Monday. "People thought the ad was aggressive and shocking. They told us if we had any integrity, we'd focus on our positives, not on the negatives about the Conservatives." But Herle also noticed that these voters all suddenly indicated they wouldn't vote Conservative anymore. The ad made them concerned about Harper's agenda. They were switching back to the Liberals.
"I felt we needed to run that ad and that it would change the campaign," Herle recalled. "Others strongly advised against it. We warned our candidates it was coming, then released it."
The effect? Support for the Conservatives stopped. Concerns about what Harper might do to health care rose. Concerns about the sponsorship scandal fell. Voters moved away from their flirtation with the Conservatives. "Certain defeat became kind of a win," is how Herle put the election result – a Paul Martin minority government.
"I've made a lot of mistakes in my political career," Herle said. "I've learned a lot. But on this one, I was on the inside and I was right."