I'm all the way up here in Canada where we are stuck with NO attractive candidates.
Geez... tell me about it.
Well, it's not all bad. At least they are entertaining.
Steven Harper's
my way or the highway approach to politics is sort of appealing to white collar wage slaves who have had one too many meetings where they've walked away and realized, "Wait a miniute, THAT's what we are really doing now? That's what we all agreed to? That's garbage!" You can argue that a lot of PMs have ruled like this, but I think Harper has really taken it to an extreme. Other Prime Ministers have done it because they like to seem like a strong leader and don't like people being insubordinate to them. Harper does it because HE AND HE ALONE KNOWS WHAT IS RIGHT FOR WESTE-- er I MEAN CANADIANS.
Jack Layton, for all of his faults, was
born to stand in the house of commons as the leader of the NDP during a Conservative lead house of commons. He loves it. I am convinced that if you told him one day that tomorrow he couldn't stand in the house and yell at the Harper government he would be found dead the next morning. American politicians only
dream that they could express constant outrage like Jack Layton.
Anything that Stéphane Dion has done since becoming the Liberal leader has been either completely banal or sort of retarded but fortunately for him, he is so invisible to the average Canadian that no one cares. I have noticed that lately, with the talk of
elections becoming slightly louder over the last few months, he's been trying to define himself in the eye of the public a little more favourably, and just a little more in general. It
seems to me like he is trying to steal the image of the
angry French-Canadian hot head who with some effort, tones down his temper for civil discourse but not aways 100%. It worked so well for Jean Chretien all those years ago, so maybe it's a good approach for him. I have this theory that this sort of personality is the Canadian equivalent to the Folksy Texan that Americans love so much.
