Will new Tory campaign boss,Lynton Crosby,go back to his 2005 ads for Michael Howard like this one? twitter.com/MSmithsonPB/st…

— Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) November 18, 2012

Or are there dangers in Lynton’s Crosby’s approach?

The big political news of the day has been the appointment by David Cameron of the Australian campaign guru, Lynton Crosby, to run the Tory 2015 general election campaign.

Crosby is no stranger to these shores. Back in 2005 he was hired by Dave’s predecessor, Michael Howard, to beef up the Tory effort. One of the ads from that period, part of the “Are you thinking what we’re thinking” series, is featured above and there’s no doubt they were controversial.

Three years later Crosby came back to the UK and successfully steered Boris to victory in his first London mayoral campaign. He was back again this year for Boris’s successful re-election campaign.

There’s little doubt that Crosby is an accomplished campaigner and I very much like his mantra “Message matters most”.

But I’m less certain of his 2005 approach if he was to try something similar. As recent MORI polling shows the CON brand is still toxic and this could make it worse.

Michael Ashcroft has put on record his opposition to Crosby.

Whatever we are going to see a very different Tory campaign compared with 2010.

Mike Smithson

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