The Secret Diary of Stephen Harper: We Blew It, People, But We'll Fight Another Day

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

We Blew It, People, But We'll Fight Another Day

First the good news - We've gone from 99 to 124 to 143 seats.

Now the bad news - We did not go to 156 seats.

My personal post mortem:

1) Culture - We boosted the Heritage budget from $350 to $400 million, and got shot down because we made one small program cut into a wedge issue. Doh.

2) Youth Justice - Another minor optional wedge issue. We shouldn't have bothered. People already knew we were tough on crime.

3) Insulting Bloc voters was a mistake, and we paid for it. I mean, was a vote for the Alliance a useless vote?

Maybe this election wasn't the time for wedge issues. I'm getting out Mackenzie King's crystal ball in the next day or two, to see if the old guy has any suggestions. Stay tuned.

Pix: Peter Thompson, National Post

Talk Tough Like Mike

•“Look, this is America and you have to decide what kind of country you want. This is your country as much as it is mine.” - 2004
*"Look, if I lose, I'll just move back to Massachusetts." - to the Harvard Crimson newspaper - 2006
*“If you mess with me, I’ll mess with you until I’m done.”
• "You're looking at someone who turned down the chance to become Prime Minister of Canada, and I did so, in part, because I felt it would divide the country."
• “I don’t need any lessons in legitimacy from Harper.”
• “He knows where to find me.”
• "He's creating a parliamentary crisis and dividing the country."
• "It’s his budget, not mine."
• "It's up to Harper to make the right decision and up to me to decide if he made it."
• "We're putting the government on probation."
•"Mr. Harper, your time is up.”
*"This is a prime minister who a year ago was trying to make you embarrassed if you liked opera or classical music or the ballet or poetry. I mean, come on, let's get over this. You can like hockey, you can like classical music. Let's stop playing Canadian against Canadian and taste against taste."

The Susan Delacarte Stephen Harper Attack Thesaurus (Under Construction)