No, seriously:
Mr. Harper praised former Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney for taking a hard line toward internal scandals...I'm not entirely sure how best to explain Harper's desire to invoke the legacy of a PM who left both his party and the country's finances in ruins, and yet has managed to look nearly as bad in the last few months as he did when he left politics over a decade ago.
"I do think it's important to point out that Mr. Mulroney received a lot of criticism and a lot of focus for the fact that a large number of ministers had to resign because of scandal.
"But the truth of the matter was that Mr. Mulroney did not tolerate scandal in his government," he said. "There was obviously a political problem with that because Mr. Mulroney ended up tarred with the label that his government was full of scandal, when in fact, what he'd done was deal with the problems that were before him."
So far, two theories seem vaguely plausible. Most likely, it could be a cunning plan by the Cons to avoid getting so far out in front as to avoid a backlash, no matter how thoroughly the Libs shoot themselves in the foot. If so, then well played, and I'll look forward to PMPM's salute to John Turner in response.
Alternatively, maybe it's a cry for help from Harper out of frustration at the NDP's ability to bring up a party legacy which may actually win votes. I'd say the Cons couldn't be that crazy, but those have to be high on the list of famous last words in Canadian politics. (See Grewal, Gurmant.)
Either way, it's looking all the more like there's only one party which is actually trying to succeed in this election. And the other parties' bizarro campaign may just make success a lot more likely.
(Edit: typo.)
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