From today's Ottawa Citizen oped:
The day after Paul Martin's government fell last November, I had an article published on this page labelled "How the Tories can win." My recipe was simple. The Conservatives needed to do three things: give Canadians an idea of what they stand for, not just what they stand against; define Stephen Harper before the Liberals and the media did it first; and present innovative and counterintuitive policies to attract new voters.
The Conservatives did all three. They put out a platform chock-full of ideas that were both positive and forward-looking. Throughout the campaign Mr. Harper stayed on message, looked relaxed and appeared to be having fun. He played the patriotism card and championed national unity. Some of his policies were surprising, such as the GST cut and tax credits for children's sports.
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