Could it possibly be? Could Stephen Harper actually be cool?
The Prime Minister amazed us all with his surprise appearance at a National Arts Centre gala on the weekend, where he sang and played the Beatles' With a Little Help from My Friends .
It was no small gamble to don smart but casual clothes, play the piano alongside renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and try to sing in tune - something of which most people are quite incapable.
"It's always high risk to put yourself in the public eye in that way," said Kory Teneycke, until recently communications director for the Prime Minister, on CTV's Question Period .
But Mr. Harper handled the gig with the same aplomb with which he has navigated this politically perilous autumn. The video of the performance, which has been heavily viewed on the Internet, showed a Prime Minister who is relaxed, confident, and able to poke fun at himself, wryly singing: "I need somebody to love."
By calling four by-elections yesterday, to be held Nov. 9, the government has signalled it has no wish to force an election, convinced that time works to the Conservatives' advantage and to the disadvantage of Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff, who spent the weekend trying to close the dangerous rift that has emerged between his party's English and French wings.
The Prime Minister has survived a concerted effort by the Liberals to bring his government down, which is lucky for the Liberals, since the Conservatives are sufficiently far ahead in the polls - by 14 percentage points in Ontario, according to the most recent one by Angus Reid - that if Mr. Harper were forced into an election, he would almost certainly win it.
Nonetheless, the Prime Minister has ignored the advice of a plethora of pundits who argue the Conservatives should engineer their own defeat while the polling numbers are favourable.
And the failure of the three opposition parties to force an election means this government will probably survive into the new year, giving it an opportunity to bring down a new budget.
It's usually bad news for the other side when a minority government gets a chance to present a budget, which can be laden with new spending or with tax cuts.
And that budget will arrive at about the same time as the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, brought to you by your federal government and presided over by a beaming Prime Minister, to the extent Mr. Harper is capable of beaming.
Mr. Ignatieff yesterday dismissed Mr. Harper's performance. "It's too late. It's too late," he told a meeting of the Quebec wing of his party, adding at a press conference later that day that it was the Conservatives who had sought to provoke a culture war.
"This was a Prime Minister who a year ago was trying to make you embarrassed if you like opera, or classical music, or the ballet, or poetry," he said. "… You can like hockey, you can like classical music. Let's stop playing Canadian against Canadian or taste against taste."
Indeed, Mr. Harper cost himself votes and seats in Quebec during last year's election when he spoke of "all sorts of people at a rich gala all subsidized by the taxpayer claiming their subsidies aren't high enough." And there he was: a surprise act at one of the swankest events on the capital's social calendar, and wowing the crowd.
But it wasn't artists and intellectuals the Prime Minister was singing to. He was crooning for middle-aged, middle-class suburban voters in the swath of edge ridings throughout Southern Ontario and the Ottawa region, where the next election will be decided, whenever it is called.
The Conservatives will be hoping, and the Liberals fearing, that these were the sorts of viewers who were clicking on the video on media websites and YouTube. Almost 41,000 page views were recorded on the Globe's website between about 8:30 Saturday evening, when it was posted, and 8:30 p.m. Sunday.
And how does a public intellectual who leads the Official Opposition, and who regularly refers to the Liberal Party of Canada as "I," respond? Blogger Scott Feschuk predicted on the Maclean's website that "a four-hour one-man play may be the price we pay for Harper's Beatles cover. Ladies and gentlemen, Michael Ignatieff is Michael Ignatieff in Michael Ignatieff."
While there are trends in politics, there can also be sudden reverses. And questions. How well is Mr. Ignatieff absorbing the lessons of these difficult weeks and growing as a result? What scandal or controversy as-yet-unnamed may lay in wait to trip up the Conservatives, this time, rather than the Liberals? How will a precarious economic recovery, rising unemployment and a sure-to-be-chronic deficit affect voter attitudes toward all parties?
The answers to these mysteries may yet undermine the Prime Minister's stratagems. Still, Mr. Harper seems to know what he's doing. And the man can carry a tune.
John Ibbitson