Still not getting it

While Harper's now-infamous 1997 speech was the main story yesterday, there's little reason to think he's become much more tactful in the meantime in light of his impromptu scrum last night:

In the chat with the travelling media en route to Vancouver, Harper's main message was to sell the notion he would be comfortable at the helm of a minority government...

Among other things, Harper suggested most premiers "hate" Prime Minister Paul Martin, that Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty is untrustworthy, that stupidity caused the minority government of Joe Clark to fall in 1979 and that the Liberal campaign is playing into his hands.

It's bad enough for Harper to claim the right to speak for all Canada's premiers, and to cast judgment on both one of his predecessors (who at last notice held far more personal appeal than Harper himself ever has) and the premier of Canada's largest province. But even those gaffes pale in comparison to Harper repeating, in only slightly lesser form, his biggest mistake from 2004.

While Harper's main point seems to have been to demonstrate his willingness to work in a minority, Canadians are still likely to be awfully leery about letting Harper assume he's about to be given the PM job in any form. By claiming that the campaign so far has played right into his hands, Harper both appears to be out of touch with a mainstream perception of the campaign, and seems to be promoting the same internal sense of inevitability that forced so many voters to take a second look at just who was making plans to move into 24 Sussex last year.

Granted, some element of confidence is a plus during the course of the campaign. But Harper seems to be once again crossing the line from confidence into a sense of entitlement. And that's not likely to have any better effect now than it did last year.