From now until the next election, the Harper Party will repeat the same meme -- Trudeau lacks experience. Never mind that Mr. Harper himself has very narrow life experience. Michael Harris writes:
Stephen Harper was a university drop-out from suburbia who became an office boy in an oil company out west, and then a student again.
Armed with his degree in Economics, Harper moved straight into politics as peach fuzz policy advisor to the newly minted and cash-short Reform Party. He got the job because he was smart and right-wing, but also because he was a cheap hire. And there, in different forms, Stephen Harper has remained for the rest of his working life.
The real issue is intelligence. Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner identified eight types of intelligence, one of which is emotional -- or interpersonal -- intelligence:
Trudeau’s high emotional intelligence even oozed from his Valentine’s card – he was flirting with the whole country. He is as likeable as a movie star who strayed into the 7/11 store of politics. The man likes human beings. People get the feeling he’s not a sneak. It’s why they light up when Trudeau enters a room and clam up when Harper does. And he’s no silver spoon sissy – just ask Frank Magazine’s ex-newshound.
Trudeau’s handlers, unlike Harper’s, don’t have to control the venue and the crowd to get a good reception. No one has to hold up applause signs. Nobody is asked to leave the meeting because they were seen at a rival party event.
Stephen Harper knows what the real issue is:
Consider this. If Justin Trudeau is so completely unequipped to run the country, so woefully inexperienced, why is Stephen Harper training his hate-machine exclusively on such an incompetent rival?
No, it's Stephen Harper who lacks experience and who looks at the world through a very narrow lens:
Harper’s political worldview, pinched by inexperience and poisoned by partisanship, is Right or Left in every sense of the word. Anything run by him, country, company, or bingo game will be dominated by division and conflict.
That's his fundamental weakness.
