The Liberals had a plan. And, at least at the beginning, it seemed plausible enough.

At a background briefing a month ago (how was it only a month ago?), the captains of the Liberal re-election effort laid out their strategy, such as it was then. While the Grits always intended to make sure the public was very familiar with the least pleasant aspects of Doug Ford’s historical public statements (the now-infamous quote about children with autism being number one on their list), they were equally insistent that that wouldn’t be their entire plan.

Instead, they were going to emphasize that Doug Ford wasn’t just (according to them) a bad person with bad beliefs, but that his policies would hurt voters by forcing cuts to services they rely on.

As of Thursday, however, the Liberals had spent much of the week demanding that Doug Ford disavow the comments of PC candidates in London and the Ottawa region: former radio host Andrew Lawton and medical doctor Merilee Fullerton.

Lawton, the Liberals said on Wednesday, has a history of making Islamophobic and misogynist remarks (a separate issue from the aspects of his past behaviour they’d revealed earlier, for which Lawton has apologized). They also highlighted Islamophobic tweets from Fullerton, the PC candidate in Kanata–Carleton.

Stay up to date! Get Current Affairs & Documentaries email updates in your inbox every morning.

For good measure, the Liberals also attacked NDP candidates in Hamilton — Paul Miller and Monique Taylor — who are currently facing complaints at the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal. On Friday morning, they released a 2015 Facebook update from Glen Archer, the NDP candidate in Kenora–Rainy River, in which he said that Kathleen Wynne should be imprisoned. Archer has since apologized for the remarks.

While the Liberals have been making a lot of noise about offensive remarks from other parties’ candidates, they’ve been relatively quiet on the “spending cuts will hurt people” side of the formula they laid out last month.

That’s not to say they’ve been silent. But often when they’ve emphasized the harm posed by cuts, their claims have been questionable — on Tuesday, for example, they made dire warnings about the threat to their dubious high-speed rail plan. On Friday morning, the campaign pivoted back to something more familiar: how promised PC spending cuts will hurt health-care provision.

But have the Liberals leaned too far, and for too long, in one direction?

Liberal campaign co-chair Deb Matthews denied that the focus on Ford’s remarks, and those of his candidates, had taken the spotlight away from the warnings of more concrete harms his policy changes could bring.

“These comments from his candidates hurt real people. In London alone, we have 30,000 Muslims, and these remarks are offensive and hurtful to people in London and across the province,” Matthews said. “I think we’re doing a good job on both.”

Pollster Darrell Bricker of Ipsos says the Liberal attacks on Ford’s character and the character of people around him haven’t been working.

“It seems like the voters have turned the corner on the Liberals, and they’re now taking a look at the NDP,” Bricker says. “The issue will be that even if they do stick Mr. Ford a little bit, it probably won’t even be to their benefit.”

“There’s no belief, I think, among the voting population that Doug Ford and the Progressive Conservatives are the one that would be perceived as the most tolerant … to come out and say ‘They’re not as tolerant as us,’ well, people already know that.”

The Liberals might have more luck with their attacks on the NDP — which, unlike the Tories, do carry an expectation of tolerance — but still, Bricker warns, the most important dynamic of this election so far is the desire for change at Queen’s Park.

“I’ve never seen a government whose re-elect numbers were this bad,” Bricker says. “We’re seeing 80 per cent of the population saying they want a change.”

Which raises the possibility that no Liberal plan is going to be good enough, no matter how well it’s executed.