world o' tenuous historical comparisons

Several colleagues who were around the table on a familiar downtown patio last week will be my witnesses. With as much luck as insight, I called Stephen Harper’s writ-drop virage. What was certain was that he would change style radically when an election became inevitable, the better to short-sheet the Liberals. He changed his manner completely when the 2006 campaign began, and it worked. He was certain to change his manner again. What was harder to tell was which way he would swerve. I had a hunch — and it was only a hunch because on matters like this, the Conservative brain trust stops dropping hints — that Harper would exchange steely-and-dominant for warm, avuncular, reassuring. What I said, on the patio last week, was, “He’s going to run as Louis St. Laurent.” And here’s the old gent now: