Prancing Conservatives

I'd be the first one to confess that I don't know much about Canadian politics. Or care. But I do find it amusing that conservative bloggers get so excited whenever a right-wing party wins an electoral victory - anywhere. In the recent Canadian elections, the Conservative party finally defeated the Liberals after a dozen years in the political wilderness. America's right is ecstatic that they will have a friendly government to the north.

I'm sorry - but I'm going to have to rain on their parade. The Liberal ascendancy was broken by the weight of its own corruption. Unlike the U.S., corruption scandals actually alienate Canadian voters. The Conservatives are going to have to assemble a minority government, probably in partnership with the Quebec nationalists.

This is a victory they're going to get excited about? How right-wing a government do you think is really going to be established up there? Either the new Prime Minister will have to compromise his right-wing credential to nothing in order to maintain power, or he'll push a libertarian policy and be turned out in a few years. Not exactly a right-wing mandate.

What the Theocons are hoping for is that somewhere, anywhere, another people will embrace the kind bizarre corporate/fundamentalist alliance that we have in the U.S. But they're going to have to wait a loooooong time. Because nobody else likes that set of ideas. The only way they're going to export the Bush model is through force. No wonder they're so excited about Iraq.