By ZamboniWe cats are not so consumed with the Presidential election here in the U.S. that we're unaware of what's going on in our Neighbor to the North.
It looks as if there will be an election in Canada before the one in America — even though Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government recently enacted a law setting the next election's date for October 2009.
Why? Because Mr. Harper and his Tories want to run when they think they can win.
Now, we cats do not believe that everything that happens in Canada is a direct reflection of, or reaction to, what's going on in the United States. This is despite our dear friend Pierre Trudeau's memorable comment that "Living next to you is like sleeping with an elephant... one is affected by every twitch and grunt."
But since we devoutly believe that Stephen Harper has a direct line to Karl Rove and vice versa, we delight in the idea of Karl dialing him up in the last few days and saying, "Stevie boy, I'd advise you to hold your election before Barack Obama wins ours — and inspires Canadians to sweep you out of power."
Don't laugh at either notion. First, Canadians strongly favor Senator Obama over Senator McCain for U.S. President. And as for Republicans' recognition of the strength of the Obama movement here at home, enjoy the following report from Peter Baker of The New York Times:
"One former Bush aide who spends his days publicly bashing Barack Obama sat down for lunch with me recently and before the appetizers even arrived lamented that the Democrat will probably crush McCain. He ruefully called Obama one of the three most talented political figures of his lifetime, along with John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan."
We cats aren't predicting the future. We just think we understand why Stephen Harper is in such a rush.
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