NDP ad from the 1986 provincial election

All I can say is that this awful ad was not the worst part of the 1986 NDP campaign



The NDP went into 1986 being the odds on favorites to win the election.   Bill Bennett was a spent political force and the province was still angry about restraint.   But then Expo 86 happened and was success, the Socreds changed leaders to the charasmatic Bill Vander Zalm.  Meanwhile the NDP managed to run a campaign that seemed to be designed to drive the public away.  

The ad above is just one example of the campaign.    Meanwhile the leader Bob Skelly had a disasterous press conference at the start of the campaign and never recovered.  

In this election I was an active volunteer for the BC NDP because I was a fan of Bob Skelly.  I joined the NDP to vote for him the leadership race.

From Wikipedia

Results[edit]

Party		Party leader	# of candidates	Seats			Popular vote
				1983	Elected	% Change	#	%	% Change
	Social Credit	Bill Vander Zalm	69	35	47	+34.3%	954,516	49.32%	-0.44%
	New Democratic	Bob Skelly	69	22	22	-	824,544	42.60%	-2.34%
	Liberal	Art Lee	55	-	-	-	130,505	6.74%	+4.05%
	Progressive Conservative	Vacant[1]	12	-	-	-	14,074	0.73 %	-0.43%
	Green		9	-	-	-	4,660	0.24%	0.05%
	Independent		6	-	-	-	2,470	0.13%	-0.19%
	Libertas		1	*	-	*	1,552	0.08%	*
	People's Front		8	*	-	*	1,502	0.08%	*
	Communist		3	-	-	-	722	0.03%	-0.02%
	Libertarian		3	*	-	*	341	0.02%	*
	Western Canada Concept	Doug Christie	1	-	-	-	322	0.02%	-0.84%
	New Republic		1	*	-	*	245	0.01%	*
Total			237	57	69	+21.1%	1,935,453	100%
Source: Elections BC