It's clear that Lynton Crosby is now in charge of the Harper campaign. How else do you explain the prime minister's railing about niqabs in the face of two court rulings? David Krayden writes:
Everything is transpiring according to the playbook, and Crosby — who probably can’t believe his luck in landing so soon on one wedge issue in the niqab controversy — is actively looking for other flashpoints to divide the voters.
Harper's turning to Crosby is bizarre. But the entire campaign is bizarre:
This isn’t just the longest campaign in modern Canadian politics — it’s also one of the most bizarre. We have the NDP campaigning on balanced budgets, hiring more police officers and retaining the much-maligned F-35 joint strike fighter for the RCAF. We have the Liberals talking up the advisability of deficits and supporting the Conservatives’ security bill. And then there are the Conservatives themselves, pitching for a renewed mandate for the Stephen Harper Corporation — even though that corporation has appeared at times to be one of the most incompetently run and unethical organizations ever to walk the political stage.
And, despite evidence of wide spread and miraculous corruption, Harper remains competitive:
It must seem slightly miraculous to the Tory team that, with less than three weeks to go, the Harper Party remains in a first-place tie with the competition. Harper walked through the Mike Duffy trial like a somnambulist; even when he was the target of Tom Mulcair’s withering cross-examination, the PM focused on the weather — or whatever else he could find to talk about. His staffers somehow appeared both evasive and disconnected from both their jobs and reality; Harper merely moved on.
If one trial wasn’t enough, Bruce Carson had his day in court too. Carson, easily the oldest man in a PMO dominated by twenty-somethings, may have brought some much-needed experience to Harper’s inner circle; turns out it wasn’t the sort of life experience that the job called for. Still, Carson has had little or no impact on the campaign.
Many Canadians don't seem to recognize an obvious wombat attack.
