With an election call likely under a month away, we’re starting to get an idea of the narratives the parties will be using to try and frame the campaign. After all, elections are all about the 10 second story, be it “throw the crooks out“, “it’s the economy stupid“, “we need free trade“, or “hope“. A clear, easy to understand narrative that resonates with voters – like the ones above – can win you an election. A muddled, confusing narrative won’t win over a single undecided voter.

If we consider last week’s caucus speech the launch of the Liberal campaign, it seems likely the Liberal narrative will revolve around this idea:

We can choose a small Canada—a diminished, mean, and petty country. A Canada that lets down its citizens at home and fails them abroad. A Canada that’s absent on the world stage.

That’s Stephen Harper’s Canada.

Or we can choose a big Canada. A Canada that is generous and open. A Canada that inspires. That leads the world by example. That makes us all proud.

2017 will be our 150th birthday. We can be the smartest, healthiest, greenest, most open-minded country there is—but only if we choose to be. We can build a Knowledge Society, from pre-school to post-secondary, with quality early learning and childcare for every Canadian child. We can ensure that every Aboriginal Canadian gets a world-class, not a second-class education—with the opportunities to match.

We can create tomorrows’ jobs by investing more, not less, in research and innovation.

We can invest in our environment—and invent the clean energy technologies that will have the world beat a path to our door.

For the Bloc, judging from these ads, it appears they’ll be going under the traditional “Liberal, Tory, same old story“:

For the Dippers? Well, they’ve been fairly consistent with their “only we can oppose Stephen Harper” line, but they seem to be backing down from that. So, as is the case with finding money and finding candidates, we’ll consider the narrative search a work in progress for them.

Which brings us to the Conservatives:

Conservative strategists want to remind their base, and swing voters, of the alliance the Liberals forged with the NDP and Bloc – and frighten them with the notion Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff might try it again. The accusation plays right into existing Tory attacks that paint the recently installed Liberal chief as a political carpetbagger who’s returned to Canada after a long absence merely to win power.

“They can tie the two together and say … ‘He will force an election even when there is no reason for it and there is no policy distance between the two parties on any major issues. And he’s forced an election which will lead to him rebuilding the deal with the other two parties,’ ” said University of Calgary political scientist Tom Flanagan, a former Harper adviser.

“It doesn’t have to be true. It just has to be plausible and it strikes me as plausible.”

The anti-coalition campaign strategy is also an argument in favour of a Tory majority because it paints this outcome as the only way to avoid the risk of another alliance between the Liberals, NDP and separatist Bloc Québécois.

Well, I would argue that a Liberal majority is another way to avoid a coalition but, regardless, this seems to be the message the Tories intend to put out there. Given the visceral backlash we saw to the coalition, it’s actually not a bad narrative to run on strategically – especially when you’re a government with no real accomplishments or vision.

Like Flannagan says, the success of this strategy really lies in how plausible this is to Canadians. Personally, I can’t imagine Ignatieff touching it again, given how radioactive it was – I would hope voters are able to draw the same conclusion.