Desperate times typically call for desperate tactics.

Behind in the polls, burdened by an unpopular premier, bruised by opposition attack ads, Ontario’s Liberals might be tempted to unleash the usual negative advertising campaign by now.

Instead, they are taking a gamble on playing nice. And, oddly, turning the tables on themselves.

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Kathleen Wynne is at centre stage in a pre-election advertising blitz now hitting the airwaves. Instead of talking tough about her opponents, she talks about tough times in Ontario under her government.

In the 30-second spot, people (okay, actors) share their struggles with low wages, temporary work, and college tuition. The premier comes on camera to say she’s “fighting” on their behalf, while subtitles flash onscreen touting a $15 minimum wage, reduced tuition, and equal pay for temporary workers.

No partisan shots. No “framing” of her little-known opposition rival (PC Leader Patrick Brown) by boxing him in as “just not ready.”

Kathleen Wynne as seen in aLIberal party television ad. The ads talk about tough times in Ontario but are not tough on Wynne's opponents making it appear that the party is gambling on playing nice, writes Martin Regg Cohn. (Ontario Liberal Party)

Have the Liberals lost the TV plot?

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Last January, PC campaign chair Walied Soliman tried to put his finger on that plot: “We know that the Liberals are going to unleash a campaign of unprecedented ferocity against Patrick,” he told the Star’s Robert Benzie. “The only path to re-election for them involves waging a highly negative, misleading, and personal campaign against Patrick.”

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Yet in October, it’s the latest Progressive Conservative commercial that descends into an attack ad, casting the Liberals as irredeemably corrupt. Using sound effects of jail doors being clanked shut, overlaid by a true crime soundtrack, it concludes, “Kathleen Wynne is untrustworthy.”

So why are the Liberals not counter-attacking yet? Or trying to define Brown as abominable before he describes himself as preferable?

First, it’s tough to trash talk your opponents when you’re down in the dumps. The Liberal brand has taken a beating with scandals culminating in court cases.

In the absence of credibility, negativity loses its appeal.

Second, the Liberals are relying on proxies from big labour. The union movement is slowly reprising its role in Ontario politics, planning TV ads that target Brown’s right-leaning Tories as untrustworthy in their own right.

Working Ontario Women (WOW) will launch its own ad campaign shortly. Funded by the Service Employees International Union, which is close to the Liberals, WOW will highlight candidates who favour women’s rights — and while Brown now describes himself as pro-choice, his past voting record (hailed by pro-lifers) will come under scrutiny.

Other unions may also step into the fray soon — allowing Wynne to stay above it all for as long as possible.

Third, the Liberals have their own track record of going negative against Tories when it works, for better or for worse. In the 2007 election under then-premier Dalton McGuinty, they exploited religious anxieties after the Tories proposed faith-based school funding. While the Tories shot themselves in the foot, the Liberals went nuclear.

These are early days. The Liberals are spending $1 million to place their ad on television and online before Nov. 9, when pre-election advertising curbs take effect.

But there will be much more money from all sides closer to the June election — and the PCs have already spent heavily over the past year trying to introduce Brown to Ontarians. Albeit with little measurable effect.

Brown’s roll-out started positively enough, with an ad campaign last January describing how he overcame a childhood speech impediment, and his determination to help kids with autism. Another showed him telling viewers that “hydro prices are the highest in North America” (except that electricity is cheaper in Toronto than several U.S. cities, according to Hydro-Quebec).

All these months later, most voters still tell pollsters they don’t know much about Brown. Just that they know Wynne only too well, and don’t like what they know about her.

Which raises a few interesting questions about the rival Liberal and PC strategies:

If people are persuaded they already know Wynne’s faults, why are the Tories telling people what they already know? And if people still don’t know much if anything about Brown, why is the big PC advertising spend not raising his profile?

If the premier is supposedly her own worst enemy, what do the Liberals know about Wynne’s prospects that has prompted them to place her front and centre in their campaign?

And has anyone heard from the New Democratic Party?

Martin Regg Cohn’s political column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. mcohn@thestar.ca, Twitter: @reggcohn