"But then conservatism is sometimes associated, even by conservatives themselves, with pessimism: it holds that human nature is not perfectible on this Earth, and that it rarely does any good to sit around hoping for the best."

You would say this and I will disagree, of course. Human beings aren't perfectible, it is not pessimism, it is wide-eyed realism. If anyone has problem with people, it is liberals. Liberals want to control us because we misbehave, they are nanny party. Cons may have gloomy idea of people but we want to leave people alone. Libs say they like people while continually enlarging State to control us.

Harper's communication strategy doesn't seem particularly conservative to me. Reform Partry, Mike Harris, R Klein, that seems conservative to me and they liked speech, debate. No surprises, proud of conservatism. Harper command and control from centre is continuation of what Trudeau started, who was a socialist.

"We interviewed key members of every leader’s campaign staff, often on the understanding that nothing we were told would be revealed until after Canadians had voted."

This is third or fourth of these I have read of yours, Wells, and this was best one. Terrific. Don't know if it's memory playing tricks but this campaign account seemed to have more insidery info, gossip and analysis than past ones. I really enjoyed it, thank you.

"We need a system that's a bit more robust to handle these things."

Makes sense. I don't know much about what you guys behind scenes read/receive.

I am curious to see anonymity makes difference one or another to comment section. I have used both moniker and my proper name and didn't make difference to what I wrote but I don't know what you guys are holding back/deleting. Look forward to it.

hahahahahaha. I agree!

McKinnell does better job of selling than Gohier, that's for sure.

Just deleted a comment and that worked well .... disappeared quite quick.

No need to be afraid .... creative destruction is our friend!

Don't bother. It is obvious your post is just one person's thoughts and all of a sudden it is about something else entirely.

I thought Springsteen choice was off to - Springsteen is American as apple pie and not sure why Iggy/Libs want assoc with American when Iggy has carpetbagger problem. Couldn't they have picked a Canadian band that has song about rising up against something? There must be dozens.

I have been thinking about your lithium in water idea - if we are going to add mind altering substances to water I would prefer ecstasy. Makes people happy/loving and it might help us understand better OriginalEmily1 and her mad ravings.

Liberals need to stop behaving like long term girlfriends or new wife who think their man has all the basics but needs a lot of work to be acceptable. Libs make it plain that they don't particularly like people, that we have long way to go to reach lofty heights of Libs and their awesomeness.

Libs also behaving like women with their catty remarks towards one another and others.

No.

"And I take responsibility fully for anything we failed to do."

Iggy took full responsibility by arranging his next job last summer. But I do agree that it was not exactly a referendum on Iggy, tho it was a bit. How can it not be?

"It’s not a scheduled stop on this summer’s gruelling bus tour but the University of Toronto is looming as the Liberal leader’s final destination. Michael Ignatieff is being touted as an eventual successor to Janice Gross Stein ... " TorStar, July 2010

"But I can’t recall anything on this scale, or this vicious."

Libs leaking info about Layton's late night visit to brothel that was being investigated for underage prostitutes was at least as vicious as anything Cons did and it didn't cost them anything, either. Negative tactics are expensive or cheap, depending.

Also find it curious how many journos and other citizens think pols are Brahmins who can't be questioned and deserve total privacy while demanding private citizens answer the most private of questions in census.

What you call vicious or loathsome, Coyne, is considered to be uncomfortable truth by many others. Voters discriminate between what they find acceptable/non-acceptable, '93 Chretien ad is an example of public actually being repulsed, but people across parties have been receptive to Con ads pointing out Iggy's time abroad and why did he return. I know many believe that Cons have great mind control abilities through their ads but they really don't.

Msm is meant to "Comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable" but they seem to have completely forgotten that. Now journos think their job is to protect pols from the raging hoi polloi, they have completely abandoned one of their main functions.