The first few days of this election campaign have not been kind to Stephen Harper. I think it would be seriously overstating the case to imply that his campaign is in trouble, but this is not the carefully-managed machine he ran in the past.
So far, he's been knocked off message by the debate flap, a pooping puffin, and now by a cut of 500 jobs at Ford Canada and his tin-eared response to it (which, if his opponents know what they're doing, should come back to haunt him later in this campaign):
"I think you have to be honest with people. The government can't go in and say 'we can guarantee your job.' We can't guarantee your job," Harper said.
If you're going to say something like that in politics, you'd better be following it up with an announcement of a new program to help the people who just got laid off. Instead, Harper's just telling people not to worry, it's all going to be OK in the end:
"But in most areas, people have been able to get other jobs and in most areas, disposable incomes continue to increase. So it isn't just that they're getting new jobs. They're often getting new jobs that pay just as well or better," he said.
Yes. I know that would make me feel so much better.
The other parties aren't doing much better, to be sure. All I'm saying is that this level of preparedness suggests that nobody really has a well-defined plan and the outcome may be a little more random than anyone was expecting at the start.
Geez - that's a crap photo of Harper in that Star article. The photographers (well, editors) aren't being good to him since this started. Either that or he isn't getting much fibre in his diet lately.
Maybe he should try eating more "fruit" :-)
Yeah, it is a terrible picture of him, and one that kinds reinforces the negative narrative. I remember people pointing out on the last election that every shot of Martin made him look like a tired old man. I'll be interested to see if the bad pictures keep up.