From the Washington Times:
Why does President Bush hope Christmas comes a little late this year? Because on Jan. 23, Canada may elect the most pro-American leader in the Western world. Free-market economist Stephen Harper, leader of the opposition Conservative Party, is pro-free trade, pro-Iraq war, anti-Kyoto, and socially conservative. Move over Tony Blair: If elected, Mr. Harper will quickly become Mr. Bush’s new best friend internationally and the poster boy for his ideal foreign leader.
A Harper victory may prove to be the exception to the international rule—a rare foreign event that manages to put a smile on President George W. Bush’s face.Patrick Basham is senior fellow in the Center for Representative Government at the Cato Institute.
So far in this campaign, the momentum certainly has been with Harper.
Noted over on the site of Toronto Star blogger Antonia Zerbisias, an uncanny resemblance between the Conservative Party of Canada web site and the US Republican National Committee web site.
Judge for yourself:
Republican National Committee
Conservative Party of Canada
Non-technical observations: Even if not a single line of code is similar between the two (and on the surface this does appear to be the case), the look and feel of the sites certainly is shared.
Free tip
To the media folks at CPC campaign HQ – the opposition is looking for any reason to tie the Conservative Party (and its leaders and influencers) to the generally disliked in Canada conservative party down south. If you are going to borrow ideas and graphic design from anyone, its probably not a sane idea to steal those ideas from the party of George W. Bush.
Its too bad the Conservative Party site designers didn’t follow the GOP site lead in one direction – the GOP site uses Flash but in a restricted fashion; those without flash can still use and benefit from the site, where its Canadian cousin is completely unusable unless you are able to use Macromedia Flash.
Update on the security kafuffle – ”ferret” over at Conservative Life issued an apology to me, which I sincerely accept.