Music To My Ears

And, I'm sure I'm not alone:

With that in mind, the Liberals are expected to start trying to regain some traction with a massive ad campaign — with a rumoured price tag of $2-million — after Labour Day. Insiders say the campaign is aimed at helping voters, for whom Mr. Ignatieff remains somewhat of a cipher, to get to know the leader and what he stands for.

According to Mr. Goodale, Liberals hope to use the fall to expand on the theme that — unlike Harper's “petty partisan negativity” — Mr. Ignatieff has an inspirational dream of turning Canadians into the best educated, healthiest, most productive, innovative and entrepreneurial people “on the face of the earth” by 2017, the 150th anniversary of Confederation.

That's a sizeable chunk of change, and it speaks to a party that it's in relatively good shape. I like the optics of this ad buy, because it demonstrates to all that the Liberals are no longer broke and at a decided disadvantage- we have the capacity to, and can present our own message. This ad campaign projects confidence, a sideline to the themes, it translates to a party that actually looks ready.

Those secondary optics aside, it's nice to see that the decision has been made to be proactive in defining Ignatieff. There's no question his image has been hurt of late, but he's still largely a blank slate, we need to fill in some of the void with our own narrative.

Lot of talk about regaining "traction", the timing of this effort couldn't be better. On top of that, a positive presentation is a nice contrast to the gutter the Conservatives thrive on. Good stuff.