Pop culture analogies are like most comparisons: odious. That said, it’s the bloggers lot in life to follow front-line reporters on to the battlefield and – rather than report on life-saving acts of valour – shoot the wounded (or often in my case the recently deceased: see Dion, Stephane; cheap shots aimed at).
So the night before last Kris Allen, the guitar strumming easy-listening, fly-over, middle-of-the-road, boy next door defeated the too-hip-for-the-house, broadway-bound, multi-outfitted, peacock about town Adam Lambert. The New York Times live blog took this as an almost personal afront to the sensibilty of their coastal audience.
Dullard that I am, my immediate thought was; had Steve-0 a vote, Allen would’ve run up the score. Ig, of course, would’ve been be too busy reading The Brothers Karamzov to the wife, so reflection on his counter-factual musings are moot. Which is my point. Every dog and his cat around here weighed in on the Tory attack ads. Too soon, too late, miss the point yadda, yadda, yadda. Ig’s obvious patriotism notwithstanding, here’s my take: they worked.
The Tories can’t get to a majority and they know it. Best to lock in the base and wait for the inevitable pinko cotillion to tear itself apart in a short lived coalition government leaving the country no choice but to turn it’s eyes back to les bleus, possibly under an attractive new helmsman.
If that’s the idea, the ads do the trick. Ignatieff ‘s suggestion that the ads are anti-immigrant because they question Ig’s loyalty to a country he’s spent half his life avoiding misses the point. It’s not that he wasn’t in the country for 34 years, it’s what he was doing. Egghead, pointyhead, poindexter – call him what you will, Ig’s an exotic, a rare bird. And while that shouldn’t be any kind of disqualification it often is (see Stevenson, Adlai).
It’s all particularly hilarious since if “ordinary" Canadians actually got to know Steve-O, they’d realize that in his own way he’s more of a nerdling geek that Ig. But guess what – Canadians aren’t going to get to know the real Stephen Harper because he’s got that Timmy-Ho, hockey-dad bit down pat. I pray I’m wrong about all this, but then again I actually did prefer Kris Allen to Adam Lambert so it looks like another season in Dipper hell for me.
