Well if Steve Smith can do it so can I. Here is 1404 words on the Conservative victory based on my alcohol fuelled boasting.

This election Stephen Harper has won the most exceedingly weak mandate in Canadian political history, perhaps excepting the Clark interregnum of 1979. Joe Clark also won 36% of the vote but the Liberal party's over-concentration in Quebec brought them 40% and less seats. Clark declared he intended to govern as though he had a majority. This was the only untruth that the Right Honourable Charles Joseph Clark ever uttered in his storied political career, which he failed to correct. Joe Clark had been handed a weak mandate and proceeded to govern cautiously, repudiating some of the most contentious parts of his platform. From the privatisation of Petro Canada to the recognition of Israeli control of Jerusalem by way of moving the embassy there, Joe had backed away from those pledges which were not part of the Canadian consensus.

Joe finally realized that he might want to propose some relatively bold measures in the House and thus John Crosbie's Mukluk budget was introduced. The centrepiece of which was an intelligent consumption tax which would ensure a more efficient and stable energy sector, while not causing a runaway increase in gas prices: an eighteen cents per litre excise tax on gasoline. Something which seems innocuous today, which was far less radical than the NEP, which still put Clark on the nationalist and interventionist side of the issue. The NDP and the Liberals sensing an unpopular position which would have to be explained to the Canadian people brought down the budget and with it the government. Yes, Paul Wells ought to add a 5th rule of Canadian politics:

Whoever has to use more words loses

And so Stephen Harper's advisors knew this. It was his advisor Brian Mulroney who won in 1984 screaming the words "I had no option!" back in John Turner's face, while he did his damnedest to explain which bastard was really responsible.

It was Brian Mulroney who's Free Trade was easier to digest and easier to misinterpret than John Turner's, "This agreement makes it impossible to maintain Canada's independence."

Peter MacKay's we can beat the Liberals beats the we are fighting to retain a moderate alternative to the Liberals and the Alliance that Orchard, Flora, et al were countering with.

So Harper simply said: Taxes up (They weren't) savings down (not national savings) and appealed cynically to the most myopic and cynical vision of Canada. They actually walked the two blocks to the polls this year and Stephen Harper was swept into office on a thundering tsunami of shrug! Now the Liberals have only to wait for Harper to begin governing to have themselves proven right. The only question is how deluded are both parties' hackocracies going to be. Will Harper's people say: "Yes Stephen, this is your mandate for change. Start boldly. Anybody who claims that they weren't voting for that hasn't read our party policy booklets." Or, will they say, "Let's start talking with the Liberal leadership, since we really are closer to them than to the BQ, and see what we can agree on getting through the house and take our chances. If the opportunity comes to pry off a couple of back benchers from the Grits then we can also deal with the NDP." Will they govern honestly or will they govern under the expectation that the Liberals will be as cravenly obstructive in opposition and partisan as they were?

I also wonder about the Liberals, but I won't have to for long. With people like Ignatief and Orchard in the party they will acttually begin to have substantive debate returning to the fore. That will in effect be Martin's greatest gift to the party. That he knew when to leave before the party began to rot at the roots. Turner made the opposite mistake, when a party was atttempting to find itself and when it was just beginning to come together, he left, allowing Chretien and his oatmeal campaign to sweep into the party leadership. It was this move which has trapped the Liberal party talking in circles for so long that the verbaige had lost all meaning. The Liberals feel chastened. This is good, for they won the campaign, but lost power through their government. They would do well to be Cameronesque in opposition and actually give the fairly routine government business rapid assent so that parliament can be dominated by those issues and ideas that truly do divide the country. In this way the Liberal party can both unite and divide the country, fulfilling Peter Newman's most over used quote about a leader as one who takes national anxieties long buried and lifts them to the surface. If the Liberals want to retain their still strong hold on the higher offices of the nation, they will not act like the Conservatives in opposition. They will be a party of thinkers. The leader will allow freer reign to MPs and the party will begin to like the taste of real debate and constructive criticism. Realising that Canadians are looking for an undiciplined party that won't scare the bejessus out of them will be the first step. The Carolyn Parrishes of the Liberal Party will continue to chill Andrew Coyne's blood, but then so does anyone to the left of Terrence Corcoran The Liberals can show that they better reflect a diversity of opinion in their ranks than do the Conservatives, because the Liberal party is no longer obscured by the veil of cabinet.

The Liberal party may once again become a big tent of principled persons like the Liberals during the Pearson-Trudeau transition. However, it may well continue to be nothing more than an expression of vehicular politics and stand ultimately for nothing. But this would be beneath the steely efficiency of the LPC. They know that the people also need the vision thing even if its faked and the Grits will be prepared to try out many models. American liberal, Liberal Conservative, Trudeau Liberal, Business Liberal, We don't like the Tories Liberal. They'll all be well represented at the next LPC convention and hopefully the party will have the intelligence not to pick a polar opposite of the government, but rather someone who solidifies the Canadian consensus and goes on to focus the debate on very specific issues such as foreign relations and the nature of federalism par example.

Stephen Harper is likely deluded into thinking that LCD or Lowest Common Denominator politics works. It does work, but it only does so for so long. Remember Brian may have won back to back majorities, but he destroyed his party and the legittimacy of its thinkers for years to come. People get smarter with more time and they will wise to you. Will you wise up to them? Consider:

Those blatantly simplistic anti-government votes that you appealed for with lines from your commercials like, "It seems like you get to Ottawa and no one can touch you," will see you. Being Prime Minister. In the Canadian capital. In Ottawa. And you'll become the new reason why their paychecks don't go as far as they like, that that clerk in line treated them brusquely. They'll be reminded of your GST cut, which at first seemed welcome relief, but after a while became an unbearable burden at 5%. Mothers who see their child tax benefit rolled back and their taxes going up in the wake of your new child care cheques will continue to blame government and when they realize that they were putting their faith in a bill of goods will they blame themselves? No. They'll blame you. And Frank McKenna, or Stephane Dion, who can out bookish you, or Ralph Goodale, or Michael Ignatief, or maybe even David Orchard will be able to wipe that 7% (5%/2*3) of the electorate out from under your feet. Even if these people simply don't show up it will be enough to cost you the next election. As Alan Gregg noted after the 1979 election: "The reasons for voting clark were six to one negative." If you are foolish enough to believe that you won the election because more people voted for you I pity you and I pity Canada because of the governance that you will inflict upon us.

So Stephen, have a fun 2 years. Just don't forget who you're renting the house from.