Canada's Next Top Prime Minister

As we moved from certainty to speculation and back to certainty around the timing of an election (albeit with a shiny new date of Oct 14th, 2008), many have weighed in on what they think this election will be about.

The general theme running through the Canadian punditry elite is that this election will be about leadership. ok. good. I'm with you there. 110%. In a time of impending economic and environmental crisis this country needs strong leadership. Give me an L- E-...

Where I, and many Canadians it seems, differ from say, the Lawrence Martins of the world is in who we look to when we compare leaders.

More and more the polls show that Jack Layton is a major contender for the the big winner of Canada's Next Top Prime Minister. As far as I am concerned, Dion is a bit player in this contest. The only thing at all interesting about his act is how unprepared it is.

No. This time, me and my fellow Canadians are not falling for the Big Red Scam. You know, the one where we are supposed to believe that the Liberals are totally different from the Tories. The one they have been trying to sell us for years.

Dion may have a flashy new tax that he is parading around and calling an environmental plan but he has spent way too much time enabling Harper (supported him on 44 confidence votes I hear) to be able to proclaim that Harper is evil and that only Stephane Dion and his merry band of snake oil salesmen can save us. Thanks but no thanks. We're not buying it anymore.

Stephen Harper is not good for Canada and he does need to be stopped. But I'm counting on Jack Layton to do it.

There's a reason that Layton is being compared to Obama (both favourably and pejoritavely). It's because he is tapping into that same feeling of hope that won Obama the Democratic nomination. He is promising to do things differently and that is what Canadians want.

This election should make for some interesting reality TV.