How Sweet it is: Canadians Reject Harper’s Big Fat Smear on Turmel

Two polls released today show that Canadians couldn't care less about Turmel's ties to the Bloc and QS, and that the NDP is actually gaining ground. Here's my analysis:

"In politics smears have a tendency to work. That’s why attack ads and mudslinging are the norm down south, and a growing trend here. It doesn’t really matter if an accusation is true, studies have shown that people are far more likely to pay attention to the original, shocking, smear than to any subsequent correction.

With the debut of Fox News North (aka Sun News) and the success of Stephen Harper’s cheap shot politics, it’s fair to wonder if our smug sense of superiority about the gullibility of our neighbors to the south is warranted. Sure Canadians don’t believe that Saddam was responsible for 9/11, or that Obama is a closet Muslim who was born in Kenya, but smears which grasp a kernel of truth and distort it beyond recognition have had some measure of success in Canada. These kind of smears are the hardest to combat, as refuting them requires placing this kernel of truth in context, rather than simply explaining that Politician A is not, in fact, in the habit of dining on kittens..."

http://www.forgetthebox.net/mag/how-sweet-it-is.php