Will He Or Won't He?

Listening to the coverage of yesterday's US election a thought came to mind, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who had it.  Could Stepehn Harper decide to call an election soon to cash in on the current right wing swing in the US?  If so he'd do well to think twice.  Canada isn't the US, and our political landscape is quite different.  He's not going to be able to exploit the anti-incumbent attitude found south of the border given that his party is the current ruling bloc, tenuous as it may be at times.  He's in Barack Obama's place in Canada at the moment, not Sarah Palin's.

As for the Tea Party supported crowd now they'll actually have to do something.  It's easy to sling around slogans and digs during an election, it's quite another thing to actually get to work within the legislature and get things done.  And how long can you claim to be a "Washington outsider" when you're in office without looking silly?  Given the disparate beliefs of the Tea Party and their favoured candidates conflict amongst them may soon blunt the movement.

Tea Partiers Want To Be More Like Canada?

Considering a lot of the stuff that's commonly believed by the Tea Party crowd in the States I've tended to assume that they probably don't like Canada much.  But maybe I'm wrong.  Apparently a lot of them want to repeal the 17the Amendment of the US Constitution, which allows direct election of Senators.  Instead they want appointment of Senators to be in the hands of state governments.  That would make it a lot closer to the Canadian Senate, whose members are chosen by the Prime Minster and are not voted for by individual Canadians.   This is ironic given that the most common idea for Senate reform in Canada is to make it elected, although there are also those, like the New Democratic Party, who want the Senate abolished.  Alberta has had elections to fill its Senate candidates, and the current Saskatchewan Party government in Saskatchewan wants to do the same, but the results of these elections are not binding on the Prime Minister.  So it's kind of amusing to see the Tea Partiers move in the other direction.