Many analogies have been drawn over the years between Saskatchewan's two favourite sports - football and politics.
Both are rough and tumble and often won in the trenches. Both will see the occasional cheap shot. Notwithstanding the nature of loyal fans and a few homers who purport to be unbiased refs, both sides are guilty of such cheap shots.
But while a cheap shot in football may only cost the team 15-yard penalty, there are times when it can be a determining factor in a game. Well, the same can be said about politics. And one wonders whether the recent cheap shot at Premier Brad Wall in an NDP advertisement will cost NDP leader Dwain Lingenfelter the game.
At issue is a recent NDP radio advertisement that asked listeners the following question: "When working families ask for help with the rising cost of living, what is Brad Wall's response?" The radio ad then carries the following audio clip of Brad Wall saying: "I don't really care. We are not going to do it and they're coming back to work."
That this was a cheap, misleading and a deliberate attempt to misinform voters is unquestionable. I know this because the quote from Wall actually came from a question that I had asked the premier in a June media scrum over whether it was really appropriate to threaten to legislate the crop adjusters back to work after less than 24 hours of a legal strike. In no way did the question have anything to do with rising cost of living for average Saskatchewan families. For the NDP to suggest otherwise is blatantly dishonest.
Admittedly, the sanctimony we heard from Sask. Party caucus employees about dirty politics was a little rich given the eagerness to use anonymous blog sites and other biased venues to heap as much dirt on Lingenfelter as possible. But notwithstanding the Sask. Party caucus's own penchant for nastiness, it was absolutely right that the NDP had spliced together an answer to a different question in an effort to deceive the public.
However, far more damaging may be Lingenfelter's caucus's attempts to downplay and perhaps downright cover up what it did.
Instead of initially owning up to the mistruth when the Sask. Party first brought the ad to public attention, the NDP tried to claim the Sask. Party was "childish" and "over the top".
"We stand by the advertisement which displays in Brad Wall's own words the disdain he has shown for middle class, working families from teachers to health care employees to Crown workers to government employees," Kevin Yates said in a press release. "The ad is an accurate reflection of the government's attitude towards working people and we will continue to expose that."
It was anything but accurate. But to make matters worse, the NDP continued to run the ad for nearly a week before public pressure forced them to relent. And even when they pulled the ad the next week, about all NDP MLAs could muster was a "we regret any confusion" the ad created. Then came a series of feeble justifications from NDP caucus members that "no one at any time intended to misrepresent the position of the premier" and the problem was that an entire NDP "caucus committee focused primarily on the ad's positive content and not a few seconds of audio clip from the premier."
An NDP caucus employee taped the reporters' scrum with Wall, as is common practice at the legislature for both sides. That is how they would have got the quote in the first place, so they would have known the context of the quote.
The NDP were damn well aware of "any confusion" this ad was deliberately intended to create. Yet they stood by the ad for a week when they thought they could get away with it.
It was blatant cheap shot and the NDP got caught.
And it might cost Lingenfelter the game.
