Ottawa

What if

Ned Franks considers that minor democratic crisis of some months ago.

The Conservatives were governing with the support of less than 40 per cent of the electorate. Nevertheless, they mounted an astonishingly speedy and successful anti-coalition public-relations campaign. They had only seven days to do this, between the government’s disastrous fiscal update of Nov. 27 and Mr. Harper’s meeting with the Governor-General. While the anti-coalition campaign was filled with misrepresentations and half-truths, it worked brilliantly. Public opinion turned formidably.

(Excerpted from Parliamentary Democracy in Crisis, a copy of which I ordered on Friday.)

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