A Conservative ad campaign describes Justin Trudeau as ill-prepared to lead the country. The ads contrast Trudeau with Stephen Harper, who is presented as an able and effective leader. The strategy seems like a good one — and is a variation on an approach that has been successful for the Conservatives in the past. The last two Liberal leaders were presented in Conservative ad campaigns as out-of-touch or self-interested. These campaigns were intended to define the Liberal leaders even before they had a chance to define themselves to the Canadian public.

Some commentators, though, have suggested that the Conservative campaign may have overreached this time — that the public may be tired of negative advertising. Yet negative adverting is simply the flip side of the standard form of political advertising, which is leader-focused and image-based. Even if voters are weary of negative ads, the current campaign may nevertheless succeed in constructing the “lens” through which Trudeau and his actions are perceived.

The real problem with these ads is their deceptive character and, in particular, the way they take Trudeau’s words and actions out of context to create a misleading impression. Even if they are successful in framing Trudeau as inexperienced, the ads may also reinforce the growing perception of the Conservatives as unprincipled.

The claim that Trudeau is unprepared to lead the country is bound to resonate with some Canadians. But what about the other part of the ads’ claim — that Stephen Harper, in contrast to Trudeau, is a capable and tested leader? Harper has lived his entire adult life in politics. Politics is what he knows. He is a skilled political actor. Yet when it comes to anticipating and responding to social, economic, environmental and other challenges, he seems less skilled. As opposition leader he criticized the Liberal government for failing to participate in the U.S. invasion of Iraq. When first elected, his government began to deregulate financial institutions until the economic collapse intervened. As prime minister, he initially failed to grasp the gravity of the economic crisis — as evidenced by his flippant comment that this would be a good time to buy stocks. He has remained entirely silent on the issue of climate change. His government’s criminal law policies ignore all available evidence.

Yet Harper is perceived as an able leader because we have come to view good leadership not as effective or prescient policy-making, but as effective political strategizing. And there seems little doubt that Harper has some skill at “politics” — at generating effective ad campaigns, creating wedge issues, and stoking public anxieties and prejudices.

The media is complicit in this distortion of the idea of leadership. In an attempt to remain politically neutral, media outlets often avoid evaluating policy options. Instead they prefer to report politics as a “horse race,” to use the metaphor employed by American communications scholar Kathleen Hall Jamieson.

News reports and commentary generally focus on strategy (and often reframe policy in terms of strategy), which is then described as good or bad, effective or weak, based on the imagined public reaction. The consequence of this is that voters may regard a leader as capable and worthy of support, because she is good at “politics” and not because she is principled, wise or publicly interested.

To be a good strategist is to be a good leader. Yet if a leader is too open about her strategy then a negative reaction may follow. The federal Conservatives are praised for their attempts to win the support of new Canadians, while the B.C. Liberal party’s campaign plan to target these same groups is criticized as cynical. Part of good strategy, it seems, is discretion about strategy.

Trudeau’s political success, like that of Harper, may depend not on his ability to make wise policy judgments but instead on his skill in the game of politics, because that seems to be how we now judge leadership.

Richard Moon is a professor of law at the University of Windsor.

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