On ballot questions

As a corollary to my post this morning, I'd like to see the coalition's messaging largely move past citing past Harper quotes about his willingness to form a coalition as anything but a riposte in question period. But John Geddes has tracked down one more recent Harper quote which cuts to the heart of the Cons' already-feeble argument attacking the legitimacy of a coalition:

About one week before the Oct. 14 vote, a change of tone took hold in Harper’s campaign rhetoric. Stéphane Dion’s campaign, after being written off by many early on, was showing signs of life in the stretch run. On the hustings in British Columbia, Harper suddenly seemed to sense danger, and he turned up the rhetorical intensity a few notches.

At a new conference in Victoria on Oct. 8, he caught reporters off guard by presenting the hypothesis that Stéphane Dion might actually become prime minister, but not necessarily in the usual way. “If you get Prime Minister Dion either directly or by the opposition parties helping him take power,” Harper said, “…interest rates are going to be going up.”

Leaving that interest rates warning aside, clearly Harper was thinking about something like the scenario we now face.

While Geddes analyzes the quote more in the context of Harper's strategic blunder, I'd think it's a point very much worth repeating as to what was voted on this fall. During the election campaign, Harper did in fact raise the concept of a coalition as a reason to vote for his party rather than any of the coalition members. And obviously enough voters rejected that argument to make a coalition possible today - meaning that Harper's question of whether the public would give him a majority to avoid a coalition led by Dion has been asked and answered by the actual composition of the House of Commons.

Now, one can make the case that the message didn't form a huge part of the election campaign. But that's surely a matter of choice on the Cons' part: if they'd figured that they had a better chance of winning a majority by warning against a coalition, they could have hammered the point home at every available opportunity. And at best, that leaves Harper asking for a do-over on the last election campaign, which isn't a good reason for forcing another trip to the polls when there's a stable government ready to take the reins.