Spin, spin, spin

This is what the Minneapolis Star-Tribune had to say about yesterday’s result:

Harper had called elections early in hopes of getting his party a majority, but the Conservatives sought to put a good face on the results, pointing to their increased number of seats.

“Every other incumbent government in the Western world is in serious political trouble with the economic situation,” Conservative legislator Jason Kenney said. “Ours is probably the only one that could be re-elected — let alone with an increased mandate.”

Two things are nice to note here: first, the paper mentions specifically that Harper called elections to get a majority, which means he failed and wasted the country’s time and money in the process; second, despite Kenney’s comment - which I haven’t fact-checked in any way, but it sounds fishy - the fact is that this result was very clearly an indictment of Stephane Dion, who is a good man but quite clearly not leadership material.

In other words, if Harper couldn’t win a majority yesterday against a lame duck leader, and in shaky economic times that tend to favour Conservatives (despite, paradoxically, their historically very poor economic stewardship) Harper can’t win a majority period.

Stephane Dion is not the only national leader who should be looking for work soon. Quite simply, Harper has had enough chances to prove that he’s NFG, and the country is tired of going to the polls to prove that point over and over again. Stephen Harper is basically Joe Clark without the charm and nice hair.

They can spin it all they want, but Harper called this election to get a majority, and he should have done it in a walk, but he didn’t. Why? Because he sucks.

Read on