I guess this is valid if they mean a particular brand of conservatism. Brian Mulroney didn't seem to need to reject the United Nations or fawn over the military (while getting plenty of them killed in combat) in order to get elected with the biggest majority in Canadian history, or to return to power four years later with a very solid majority.

I'd also say that this ignores the fact that the Reform Party had a long-standing practice of adopting the language, policies and ideology of the US Republican Party. They used to fly down to Washington en masse to study at the feet of Newt Gingrich and Karl Rove. They continue to follow them closely (just look, for example, at the resumés of Tory staffers: many of them have worked at right-wing US think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute). Virtually all of the pro-military, pro-police, anti-UN, rhetoric emanating from this government comes directly from that foreign link. This isn't something they want to highlight too much, of course, as their base is ultimately pretty nationalistic (hence their attacks on Ignatieff as "Americanized".)

I don't think they can co-opt hockey, promises of a book or no.

The artic? Shoulda bulit the ice breaker. And nobody lives there and nobody wants to go there.

All in all, this list is so lame I wonder if the unnamed strategist even meant it.

How about being at the technological forefront of the global community? It's ridiculous how far behind we are.

Understanding that the lower ones level of education, the more likely one is to vote Conservative, Mr. Harper has worked hard to dumb down his message and dumb down society overall. No more debates – how many Conservative candidates came out to town hall meetings last election? – no more need for science based evidence, no more need to contemplate possible scenarios for the future and like his hero G.W. Bush, Mr. Harper sees no more need to uphold international law. Unable – or unwilling – to adhere to them himself, Mr. Harper even dumbed down the responsibilities of Canadian citizens.

Mr. Harper is the antithesis of a good Canadian; selling us out to whoever will keep him in power.

“We didn’t have any illusions about displacing the Liberal vision and the Liberal narrative of Canada,” the strategist says. “But we needed to give the conservative side something to rally around.” So almost from the beginning, Harper started building a distinct right-of-centre, patriotic new vocabulary. “It’s the Arctic,” this strategist said. “It’s the military. It’s the RCMP. It’s the embrace of hockey and lacrosse and curling.”

I think THIS is the main problem of Conservative strategists…..the Liberal vision had strategy or policy around them……they weren't merely a marketing plan…..perhaps the strategists should spend a little time with policy development rather than the communications becuase over the long haul it's really hard to sell smoke and mirrors.