As many of you know, the Canadians elected a new Prime Minister last week. The victorious Conservative Party is a somewhat recently combination of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party (who were allied with the Democratic Representative Caucus, a group that left both the PCs and then the Alliance). The Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance itself was formed when disgruntled PCs and the Reform Party came together a few cycles back (as side note: their original name was going to be the Canadian Reform Alliance Party until someone looked at the initials). That's about how fractured the Canadian conservatives have been since being decimated in the early nineties by the Liberal Party that has held power ever since.

Of course, as many of you know, even their conservatives are either comparable to our Democrats are a bit to the left of them. Even so, one of the liabilities that the Canadian conservatives have to shake off is supporting their becoming too much like us. Canada is remarkably comfortable in its relative liberalism in many ways as a distinction against its southern neighbor. So the election of Stephen Harpor, the incoming Conservative Canadian Prime Minister, is a surprise in many regards.

What is perhaps more of a surprise is not only did they win nationally, but they also made a respectable showing in Quebec, where the party or its predecessor parties have barely been a blip on the radar:

In the dying days of the campaign, as the Conservatives' climb in Quebec became undeniable, a mystified Bloc Quebecois tried one, final shot. A full-page advertisement appeared in newspapers in eastern Quebec, declaring in huge print, "We will not let Calgary decide for Quebec." A black Stetson sat atop the word 'Calgary'. The message was clear: Beware Stephen Harper's Conservative cowboys.

Jacques Gourde, who raises beef cattle on his hay farm in Saint-Narcisse, about 40 kilometres south of Quebec City, was not amused. "You could say I'm a Quebec cowboy," said the Conservative who won the riding of Lotbiniere-Chutes-de-la-Chaudiere by more than 12,000 votes over the Bloc incumbent.

"I think that advertisement did more damage than good."

Election results tend to support his position: In the area targeted by the ad, the Conservatives won eight seats.

Both the Liberals and the Bloc tried to demonize the Tories, insisting the party's small-c conservatism was anathema to modern Quebec. "Mr. Harper's positions go against values that Quebecers defend," Paul Martin said. On election day, voters decided differently, giving the Tories 25% of the votes in Quebec compared with 21% for the Liberals. At 42%, the Bloc remained the most popular party, but well below their 50% target.

The Bloc is Quebec's homegrown nationalist party.

Several years ago, when Liberal Prime Minister Chrieten won his last term as the top dog, I happened to run across a Canadian Prime Ministerial debate on C-Span. What I found surprising was that the Bloc's leader, Gilles Duceppe, came across as more of a Republican than anything and more conservative anyone else on the stage besides Alliance Party nominee Stockwell Day (including Progressive Conservative Joe Clark, who came off like one of those northeastern Republicans that mostly sound like Democrats).

Duceppe was mostly concerned with crime. He was the only one on the stage that even made mention of traditional values. Federalism (or the Canadian equivalent) was unsurprisingly important to him. His economic program sounded pretty aggressive and populist, but outside that (and disregarding the multiculturalism that comes with representing the only French-speaking province in a generally English-speaking country) he sounded like a moderate Republican or conservative Democrat (with a French accent).

But from what I understand the Bloc almost always aligns with the Liberals. And the voters in Quebec see themselves as having more in common with (lowercase-L) liberals than (lowercase-C) conservatives. Majority politics is and will always be interesting for the alliances it creates. In the US it's the Free Marketeers with Religious Right and the urban seculars with generally religious minorities. Future generations will probably look at that as strangely as we do of the Democratic Party simultaneously housing JFK and George Wallace.