Though I think Neil said it best, there is something of a difference between the US federal election process, and the Canadian Federal Election Process.
The grandest difference is perhaps summed up in the fact that our Prime Minister, on September 7th, 2008, spoke to our Governor General and requested that the present government be dissolved, and replaced with a new one. The date was set for the vote (October 14th, 2008), and butta-bing, butta-boom; no long drawn out campaign, no roller coaster ride - just a bunch of Cannucks collectively saying, "Hmph? We gotta vote again, eh? Oh well, I hope the weather is nice."
As a Canadian, I reserve the right to use Hockey as a teaching tool to explain the intricacies of foreign politics to my Canadian brethren. My fellow Canadians, do you remember when your team was in the running for the Stanley cup that year? Of course you do. Everything looked great, and you were excited about the play offs, right up until your team was disqualified in the first heat. After that, you couldn't really bring yourself to get all that excited about the finals. I mean, sure, you like the Leafs more than you like the Habs, but frankly, neither is your team, and the margin of difference between the two is so minute, you are hard pressed to care one way or the other.
That's the way socially conservative Evangelicals felt when McCain took the nomination. Sure, he's better than "Shrillary" and has more substance than the pop icon "Wham-bama" - but he is about as tasty as those awful, gag-in-the-throat, rice cakes that dieters eat (because they have to). They were lifelessly resigned to go into the voting booth in Novermber, and wheeze out a way-too-dry and dusty, nigh-defeated, sigh as they pulled the Republican lever behind scrunched eyes, clenched teeth, and a sour grimace. Well, most of them anyway.
Yet, when Palin came on the ticket - suddenly there was hope.
Macabre as the thought may be, it is still a thought that many conservatives are entertaining: The odds are not insignificant that a man who has been a senior citizen for pretty much all of the current president's tenor, and is likewise no stranger to re-occurring bouts of cancer - that such a man, however strong his heart may presently be, may well deteriorate (if not expire) in office, as that sometimes happens to old people.
Given this rather dark-horse scenario, grim as it may be, it still offers the conservative base a bone - the possibility, through unfortunate misadventure, of seeing a genuine conservative president in the white house the Poseur Conservative™ they were more or less stuck with.
McCain's choice of Palin put a defibrillator on the flat-lined heart of the conservative base, and I think that is partially why our own conservative Prime minister dissolved Canadian Parliament a week later. I think that a conservative Canadian government stands a better chance of being elected if it looks like there may be a conservative US government as well. It doesn't really matter to our Canadian election who will win the US election - but it sure matters if it looks like a conservative government has a chance...
That is why I am glad that our Canadian elections will now take place two weeks before the US elections. I am sort of glad that our elections are dull and boring compared to the US elections, as I have a bigger stake in our elections, and frankly, I don't like suspense, much less two years of posturing, and mud slinging.
Stay tuned, and I will tell you who wins up north.Labels: Elections 08 |
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