A local Liberal campaign manager made comments critical of Premier Dalton McGuinty at a campaign launch Thursday, saying their strategy in the riding should be to downplay the party leader and certain policies.

In an audio tape obtained by CTV Ottawa, the campaign manager for Nepean-Carleton Liberal candidate Don Dransfield said not to emphasize McGuinty in their riding because of his unpopular poll numbers.

"I have polling numbers that are not the party's, but are separate polling places," said Morgan Rosenberg. "Basically, McGuinty's popularity in this riding is in the gutter, that the impression of McGuinty is not positive and people that associate with him tend to not do well in the polls."

Rosenberg also said some of the party's recent immigration announcements wouldn't go over well in the riding and she was in talks to remove them from local campaign flyers.

"They're trying to put things on there that will not fly in this riding," Rosenberg said. "I don't think that the tax cut for new immigrants is the best thing to put on the flyer for us. I think we should talk more about education, full-day kindergarten and the house calls for doctors and stuff."

"I think those are more relevant issues so, I'm in negotiations with central party over that one too."

Nepean-Carleton is looking to be a tough fight for the Liberals, with Progressive Conservative incumbent Lisa MacLeod winning by more than 10,000 votes in 2007.

CTV Ottawa spoke to Rosenberg Friday, who said she was misquoting old polling numbers and apologizes for her comments.

She said people are telling her as she goes door-to-door that McGuinty's popularity was growing.

Rosenberg said she had initially offered to resign, but nobody had told her to do so yet so she'll address it down the road.

With a report from CTV Ottawa's Catherine Lathem