King Arthur Movie Tristan

Yesterday I pronounced on the reasons why the Conservative Party would want an early election. Three of them, said I: the Liberals are stalled on the Green Shift; a possible budget deficit; inflationary pressure causing possible interest rate increases.

Today the National Post ran an article in which James Cowan reiterates two of my three points:

The federal budget is back in the black, but who knows how long it will stay in the black, they [The Conservatives] may decide they want to pull the plug before interest rates rise.

Strangely it' a story about Dion getting an Obama bounce. How Cowan got that from what I wrote I'll never know, but I've rarely heard such preposterous ideas.

How any sane person thinks Canadians will look at Barack Obama and imagine Stéphane Dion I will never know. Obama is a handsome, well spoken, populist politician. Dion is a nerdy stumble-bum who's one policy is a major new tax. Obama is the first African American Presidential candidate, Dion yet another in a too long line of Quebecer's vying for the job of Prime Minister.

Of course when you use a source like Stephen Clarkson, former husband of Liberal appointed Governor General Adrienne Clarkson and author of The Big Red Machine: How the Liberal Party Dominates Canadian Politics, it is possible you will get a Liberal-tilt in your story.

I don't buy any of it. Canadians elect based on Canadian candidates, not based on who's on the U.S. ballot. If this logic applied in the real world how did the Liberals win a majority in Nov. 2000, just two weeks after George Bush squeaked out an electoral college victory? (Albeit losing the popular vote). Four years later in the Spring of 2004, the Liberals were reduced to a minority losing 3.2% of the popular vote. Meanwhile, that fall George Bush increased his popular vote by 2.8%. Other examples include 1980, when Republican Ronald Regan and Liberal Pierre Trudeau both won (PC Brian Mulroney won in 1984 and 1988, both Republican victories in the U.S.) Liberal Trudeau won in 1972 and 1968 while Republican Richard Nixon was winning Stateside.

The thesis just doesn't hold water, but of course it was never meant to: it was meant to put Stéphane Dion's name in the same sentence as Barack Obama.

At least James Cowan, however, got those other two points right.