Keeping It Corked

They say that sound carries in the north country, and no better example could be heard than on Monday night, when the thundering roar of a twenty-ton steam engine derailing itself as it ventured across the Manitoba/Ontario border could be heard clear across the country. The wails and screams of doomed passengers calling to the heavens for mercy had many Canadians covering their ears and more than a few wondering what might be happening to the neighbour's dog at such a late hour, but in the end there were no serious casualties to report, save for a carload of bruised egos and perhaps one party leader's head come the fall.

Yes, the wheels have fallen off the Big Blue Conservative Party Train once again, and all because the engineer was too busy uncorking the champagne.

This folks, was an election for the taking. Paul Martin could not have stoked the boiler hotter, with such volatile fuels as the sponsorship scandal, gun control, and internal Liberal mudslinging, or greased the rails any better with a thick, slippery layer of Liberal voter fatigue...and that was all before the train ever left the station. At each and every whistle stop, he did his fighting prime ministerial best to bend over and present as big a target as possible for his opponents to kick with impunity, coming across as a dithering, apologetic fool who never quite knew what his top priority was, other than that he had a lot of them and they all involved considerable hand waving to explain.

Ignoring all sage advice to govern when you have the opportunity, he called an election at the worst time, with no momentum, and then proceeded to do everything in his power to get anybody but a Liberal elected. And while someone must have pulled him aside at the G8 summit to suggest he might like to aim somewhere other than his own foot if he wanted to be nibbling lobster canapés come next year's get-together, his campaign down the final stretch might be described as only workmanlike had it not been made to look like the Charge of the Light Brigade by his first four weeks of ineptitude.

So, if you're Stephen Harper, what do you do? For the most part you keep your mouth shut, stick to basic policy, and let your opponent implode under a sea of missteps, bad quotes, and a decades old public record that frames any political promise in that damning question: "You had ten years, why didn't you do it already?"

Which is what he and the Conservatives did, at least for awhile, and one can only wonder at the quantity of antacids and tranquilizers consumed by Conservative handlers while keeping their charges on message and away from a serious foot and mouth spasm that had so plagued Reformers and Alliance candidates and generally convinced anyone east of Thunder Bay that they're nothing more than the Klan in cheap pinstripes.

And it was working...oh, was it working. With two weeks to go, polls showed not only a Conservative minority being as sure a bet as finding Adrienne Clarkson on a circumpolar tour, but that they had all the momentum they needed to snatch a majority and bring the party out of the western wheat fields and into power on Parliament Hill.

Then...well, then they got cocky.

Anyone who had half a brain should have seen it coming over a month ago when the Conservative Party critic for official languages, Scott Reid started musing that coast-to-coast bilingual services ought to be reconsidered, which to many Canadians is a bit like floating the idea of selective puppy slaughter. Every spin doctor, PR rep, and candidate's aide-de-camp should have been immediately issued emergency rolls of duct tape and twine with strict orders to slap tape over any mouth that so much as mumbled something other than a fully cleared policy statement, or bind any finger that tried to get cute with a keyboard.

But with polling numbers acting like a snoot full of nitrous oxide somebody did get cute and sent out the now famous "Martin Supports Child Porn" memo, a little faux pas that probably has a Conservative intern handling polling duties in Nunavut by now. Then Harper seemed to think that the last week of the election was a good time to not only revisit bilingualism, but also demonstrate to one and all that the mature, intelligent leader they were starting to take a shine to didn't have a clue about the content of the very Act he was talking about.

Then, somehow, the Liberals got hold of a piece of film with Conservative Randy White saying "to heck with the courts" while suggesting there should be checks and balances to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and generally providing hot-winded oxygen to the Liberal attack ad fire. Why the Conservative brain trust allowed White to be filmed in the first place is anyone's guess, but it left Harper flapping his gums in defense, contradicting but defending his MP at the same time, and putting one more nail in the "hidden agenda" coffin the Conservatives seemed intent on building and burying themselves in during the final days of the campaign.

Keeping their mouths shut for ten more days: that's all that stood between Stephen Harper and the keys to 24 Sussex Drive, and possibly a guaranteed, long-term stay to boot. This election was such a gimme only an idiot could lose it once another idiot had called it. It was in the bag, fait accompli, sewn up, put to bed, over, done, and finished, with nothing left to do but pop some champagne.

To the glee of Liberals everywhere, the Conservatives popped it just a bit too early. Perhaps next time they'll keep it corked just a little longer, eh?