For and against

Not surprisingly, the Cons are working feverishly to pretend that the message which won them a bare majority of seats in the House of Commons is of absolutely no consequence now that they hold them. So let's set the record straight as to why it's fundamentally dishonest for Stephen Harper and company to pretend that it's entirely insignificant that more than 60% of voters rejected them.

For upwards of two years prior to the election - as well as in the campaign itself - the Cons spent countless hours and millions of dollars repeating the message that the next federal election would be a choice between themselves, and a coalition of opposition parties with similar enough values to be lumped into one pile without distinction.

In effect, Harper spent years saying Canadians were either with them or against them. And in response to that choice, 60% of voters chose "against them", rejecting the Cons' dumb-on-crime, tax-slashing message when offered that as part of a binary choice.

Of course, given the distribution of votes among the other parties there may be limits on the extent to which any one party can claim to speak for the entire 60% - showing that there's some weakness to the premise in the first place. But that doesn't mean the Cons can get away with pretending that the message which won them a majority is entirely inoperative now that they've secured it.

In effect, unless the Cons are prepared to admit that the campaign which won them a majority was itself based on a fraud, they now have to live with the recognition that a strong majority of voters oppose their beliefs. And the more they try to operate in denial of that reality, the more likely they'll be to get turfed the next time Canadian voters get the opportunity.