For months now, Canadians have been bombarded non-stop by Conservative party ads attacking Justin Trudeau on everything from his hair to his foreign policy.

In recent weeks, the most common ad on TV and radio is the one with a multi-ethnic panel talking about Trudeau as if he were applying for a job, in which panellists dismiss him as a lightweight with nice hair.

You’ve likely seen it and heard it so many times yourself that you have almost memorized the words.

“I’m not saying no forever, but not now,” one woman in the ad says, before a voice intones, “Justin Trudeau — he’s just not ready.”

The ads are nasty — and effective. They are targeted at diehard Conservatives as well as “blue Liberals” and “soft” New Democrats, with the goal of portraying Trudeau as unfit to be prime minister.

But why do Conservative ads attack Trudeau and not NDP leader Thomas Mulcair?

Why indeed are the cash-rich Tories continuing to spend tens of millions of dollars to smear and discredit Trudeau when almost every poll indicates the Liberals will finish a distant third behind the NDP and Conservatives?

The answer is threefold.

First, Prime Minister Stephen Harper hates Trudeau and the Liberals. It’s a personal hatred, dating back to the 1980s and to Justin’s father, the late prime minister Pierre Trudeau.

Harper’s right-wing ideology was forged forever during Trudeau’s reign when the young Harper felt Justin’s father had a personal dislike for western Canada, and Alberta in particular. He felt the introduction of the National Energy Program and Trudeau’s focus on Quebec were the clearest proof of this anti-West attitude.

Second, Harper actually fears Trudeau more than he does Mulcair, despite what the polls are saying now.

While the NDP has risen in popularity after the stunning victory by the New Democrats in the Alberta provincial election in May, Harper suspects the NDP surge isn’t the real thing, and that it will ease as the Oct. 19 election nears.

Some Conservative strategists, speaking privately, believe many Canadians are still willing to give Trudeau a second look. They are particularly worried that Trudeau, who is seen as a charismatic leader, could emerge the winner in the major national television debates set for Oct. 7 and Oct. 8. That’s because expectations are so low for Trudeau going into the debates that a solid performance by the Liberal leader could have pundits declaring him the overall victor, and voters reconsidering their current hesitation towards him.

Third, Harper is obsessed with totally destroying the Liberals as a national party.

Ever the political strategist himself, Harper is playing the long game, looking beyond the October election which likely will end with a minority government of some sort. His aim is to set up the next election as a battle mainly between the NDP and the Conservatives. In basically a two-party race, Harper is convinced the Tories could trounce the NDP, with “blue Liberals” switching to the Conservatives, not the “leftist” NDP.

Thus his goal now is to crush the Liberals, turning it into a rump party with a handful of seats in Atlantic Canada, the West Island area of Montreal and a cluster of seats in Toronto.

Harper sees the Liberals as dead at the provincial level in the West and believes he can extend that trend nationally. In Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, the Liberals have not been a factor provincially for decades. In B.C., the provincial Liberal party is “Liberal” in name only. It is actually a combined Conservative-Social Credit party.

Clearly, Harper isn’t totally ignoring Mulcair. The Conservatives have already released one ad portraying the NDP as tax-and-spenders who will harm the Canadian middle class.

And if the NDP poll numbers remain high well into September, voters can expect to see more anti-NDP ads from Harper. As he sees it, he’s got enough money at his disposal to fight both Trudeau and Mulcair at the same time.

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Under Harper, the Conservatives have grown filthy rich, having collected nearly $70 million in donations since 2011, some $25 million more than the Liberals and $40 million more than the NDP

With so much cash, Harper is fully expected to keep up the onslaught of anti-Trudeau ads in the coming weeks. It’s a dirty strategy, but the only one that Harper seems to want to play in his personal war against the Liberals — and their leader.

Bob Hepburn's column appears Sunday. bhepburn@thestar.ca

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