We'll see.

Re the negative ads -- I mistrust my own judgment on them. For instance, I thought the "not a leader" take on Dion was ridiculous, back when it first came out. And yet it stuck.

But I actually do think that Harper can take Ignatieff -- at the height of the honeymoon, the Grits are up by five or less. By the time an election rolls around, I expect the two main parties to be tied, and Harper tends to finish a campaign cycle ahead of where he started it. (Even if he tends also to blow great big leads.)

Will enjoy watching the next campaign.

Excellent analysis, Al. 100%.

It is a clever deflection from the Tories to say "that guy is no regular joe" because as you so accurately point out, Harper sure ain't no regular joe. If you try the same schtick too often, people start to examine the schtick itself not just the target(s) of the schtick. Once you start saying this guy, that guy, that gal, that other guy aren't regular joes, its easy for the public to look at all the politicians to ascertain their regular-joe-ness.

Harper's image won't be able to withstand this scrutiny. He will be shown to be small and small-minded.

Ads like this just remind us what a doofus he also can come across as - chippy, ungenerous, scowling. The sort of guy you wouldn't really want as a neighbour let alone your leader if there were any real options.

According to a bio in Macleans awhile ago, that's exactly what everybody in his life says he is. That's the reason he hates Ontario - he wasn't treated so great in his Toronto high school due to the aforementioned traits.

And somebody was noting that Canadians elect Bastards and not Boneheads a la Will Ferguson. Portraying his opponent as a Bastard in a Boneheaded way will not help Mr. S. Harper.

Now now. I have great hopes for the man. Do we trample on the wee flower just starting to grow?

<i>My problem with all this is that Stephen Harper is actually starting to look like he could be a good Prime Minister one day. He just needs to find a way to convey a positive image of the nation and his vision for it and maintain the fairly centrist policies that the balancing act of Canadian voting patterns has imposed upon him.</i>

More importantly he needs to stop being a dick. A prime example is his handling of the Tamil protests. Trotting out Oda to justify not meeting with the protesters to hear their concerns on the basis of some objectionable flags has become Harper's stock in trade. Right from the start Harper's biggest flaw has been that he projects himself as the Prime Minister of Conservatives, not the Prime Minister of Canada.

Ben, the Dion is not a leader ads stuck mainly because the punditry--both conservative and liberal--got behind them. Attack ads don't seem to be very effective without that support.

Rob McC -- Good point, though who'd have thought that pundits would agree with the anti-Dion line? Still think the man is a national hero, if amazingly out to lunch on certain policies. (The anti-Ignatieff lines in the ads happen to be true, if somewhat unfair.)

I am firmly in favour of flipping the bird to Tamil protestors.

The main fundraisers for people who have AK-47s on their flags deserve to have the bird flipped to them, whether they're a large immigrant group or not.

If we can't flip the bird to people who back terrorist organizations overseas, to whom can we _ever_ flip the bird?

There's nothing wrong with a supporter flipping the bird to their fellow Canadians, but when the Prime Minister--or his caucus--do it, it speaks volumes. And the Tamil protesters are just the latest in a long line of Canadians Harper has flipped off.

This is exactly why the Republicans have run into such big problems. They claim to be a big tent party but have spent much of the last decade throwing people out of their big tent. Eventually you end up with no one left inside your big tent and that is where I see the Conservative Party heading.

Surely the Tamil problem is not the best case to use. At a certain point the PM will flip the bird (remember Trudeau) at certain points and where terrorists are involved, we do want someone that says no even if there is also the human tragedy caused by those same terrorists.

My problem with Harper is that he is too cold a fish to (mixing metaphors) flip the bird openly. Real Canadians flip the bird once in a while. Hence people's positive reaction to the Jean choke hold or even Mulroney's scrappy instincts.

Well, no one can accuse the CPC of blowing the budget on high-end production values.

The problem for the CPC is that, as Renee ably points out, Canadians elect bastards and for all his chippiness Harper does not hold a candle to a guy who engineered a palace coup, shivved his old buddy and ex-Premier of Ontario and literally took the Liberal Leadership without a vote being cast. All without having been in country more than a couple of years. (If Iggy had stayed here he'd probably be king or something.)

Will the attack ads work? Maybe. Or maybe we'll see the famous blue sweater - (just the sort of thing to get you ridiculed by the cool kids in any highschool anywhere) - pulled out.

But the rock bottom reality is that Harper's fate is likely to be determined by the recession. If he can hold power until a significant turn around occurs then he has his third, and last, shot at majority. But if the recession is long and deep Harper is toast.

(Bird flipping does not seem to be in Harper's public repertoire. Mores the pitty.)

But it screams as being in his private one... more's the pity.

It was the media's fault that the "not a leader" line stuck to Dion? Seriously?

I think Dion's total lack of ability to improve the Liberal party in any way had much more to do with the "not a leader" line sticking.

The problem with Harper is that he has no vision like Trudeau or even Mulroney (arguably, or maybe he was just trying to out-Trudeau Trudeau); and he doesn't enjoy the hell out of being PM like Chretien. He had no driving force except GETTING to PM. Now that he's there he doesn't really know what to do with it, so he micromanages and gets petulant when the country doesn't immediately fall into line with his plan to united-statestify the country - god forbid things take work one you're actually in power - because that's the closest political system that he really approves of, even if he STILL wouldn't know what to do with it if he got it.

The Dion's Not A Leader thing rung true with many of us in the party, especially those who had been stepping back for years after Martin's coup. Especially since most of his supporters were the same that supported the coup. I/We/many of us were happy to let the media do the work for us.

This makes me sad. I dislike Stephen Harper as much as anybody, but this blog entry is crap. Frankly your arguments as to why Harper is not a real Canadian is pathetic and your analysis is entirely irrelevant to the important issues facing "real Canadians"...

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawn.