As we all know, Liberals and Conservatives launched attack websites against one another this week, StephenHarperSaid.ca and TeamMartinSaid.ca.

The Liberals' launched their website in support of a negative ad campaign, meant to get out ahead of Stephen Harper. But the Conservatives taught Team Martin a lesson in quick response: the Tories' site went online Tuesday morning -- just as the major newspaper's began covering the original, Liberal ads.

Now the Conservatives have redoubled their response with an Internet based advertising campaign, released yesterday.

The three online Tory ads are bitingly ironic, satirically mimicking the Liberals' attacks. The clips rundown Liberal quotes, equally damning as those Team Martin deployed against Stephen Harper. They're even set to the same quizzical music.

My only criticism of the Conservative ads is that many of their quotes come from rank and file Grits -- not Paul Martin himself. The Liberals -- while taking a big risk by going so negative, so early -- still managed to keep their attacks focused on Stephen Harper.

But there's something even more intriguing going on here: the Tory ads attack Paul Martin for being conservative.

Liberal quotes disregarding minoirties.

Liberal quotes supporting the War in Iraq.

Liberal quotes on privatizing healthcare.

Certainly the Conservatives aren't running to Paul Martin's left, so what's up? Instead of casting Martin as a bleeding heart Liberal, Tories are highlighting his conservative credentials -- why?

Surely Prime Minister Martin once thought that his right leaning ways would secure him the support of conservative swing voters -- and a landslide majority. But Martin's drift to the right, and persistent Liberals scandals, have created a perfect storm.

Paul Martin is the most conservative Liberal leader in modern history. Conservatives realized that pretending otherwise would play into the their opponents hands. By moving further right they'd only serve to demonized themselves.

Since they couldn't depict Martin as an old tax-and-spend liberal, they had to acknowledge their remarkable similarities -- and find something else to run on.

Enter the sponsorship scandal. Liberal corruption has let the Tories inoculating themselves on policy, while still differentiating themselves on ethics.

The Conservatives have avoided a pitfall that long plagued the NDP. For years New Democrats labeled traditional Liberals as no different than the Tories; the public dismissed us as extremists.

We should have made it clear: it wasn't our values that were different, just that we'd stand up for them.

Now that the Martin Liberals have abandoned their party's progressive legacy, the Conservatives are poised to minimized their rhetoric and focused on principle. This may put Conservatives in the awkward position of arguing that the Liberals are just as right-wing as they are, but they're right on the message -- they stand up, Grits waffle.

Truth is, this strategy will work for Tories, but the prime beneficiary could be the NDP.

The Conservatives have confirmed that there's little daylight between themselves and the Liberals on policy.

The NDP stands ready to inherit the Liberal Party's legacy.

This is a progressive country -- and New Democrats are the only progressives left.