The "gods" and Stephen Harper--John Ivison

In ancient Rome, nothing of any importance was done until an augur interpreted the will of the gods. If an augur was to take the auspices on the Conservative election campaign over the last 24 hours, he’d probably conclude the gods are angry. At a rally in a hangar at Ottawa airport Tuesday evening, lightning knocked out the sound system and the teleprompter, just as Stephen Harper started speaking. His microphone eventually came back on but he was forced to read the speech from pre-prepared notes. Later that evening, a thick blanket of fog prevented the Prime Minister’s plane from landing in Kitchener and we were forced to come down in Toronto and drive to the hotel by bus. Finally, after his morning rally at a hockey glass factory in Waterloo, rain of Biblical proportions greeted the Tory faithful as they left the event. Journalists sat on the tour bus filing their stories as the storm raged, wondering what else could possibly go wrong.

Ivison continues with this theme of angry gods in a subsequent column.

Stephen Harper stood on the breezy rooftop deck of a hotel overlooking the American and Canadian falls at Niagara. In one of his rare unscripted comments, the Conservative leader ad libbed: “The winds of change.” Nervous laughter ensued, until Rob Nicholson, the Tory candidate in the city, chimed in: “Blowing in our direction.”

Not quite. The natural calamaties that have afflicted the Tory campaign this week continued – boats capsized in Hamilton Harbour and the main highway was closed by an overturned 18-wheeler, thanks to 90 km winds.

More worryingly for the Conservatives are polls that show their lead over the NDP narrowing. It seems probable that the next round of polls might even show Jack Layton’s nifty campaign overtaking Mr. Harper’s lumbering effort. Questions at the daily Tory press conference have turned from musing about majority to whether they have left it too late to defeat the NDP.

Well, we thought this was going to be a boring election.