What are the Conservatives up to?

On the weekend, we at Progressive Bloggers got a stern talking-to from the leftdog, accusing us of all being so busy writing about the Liberal leadership race that we're letting the Tories do crazy things without taking them to task. He's right, of course, and it's not just the Liberal bloggers who are guilty of that. In my own defense, though, I can only say that campaigns and elections are fun even when they're not yours, and it's awfully hard to write about the policies and strategies of a party that you find so damn confusing.

I mean, we all know that Harper did things from day one that went against his own stated code of conduct, but at least you could follow his rationale. When he enticed a Liberal to cross the floor, he was trying to strengthen his puny minority while assuring some continuity on the softwood lumber file. When he appointed a Senator and made him a cabinet minister, he was trying to assure some urban Montreal representation while ensuring that one of his backroom buddies got a juicy post. Slimy stuff, but hardly nonsensical.

These days, though, they've been decidedly more...shall we say...opaque. Though they've been told by their own ilk that they should distance themselves from Bush, stop concentrating so much on foreign policy, and avoid talking about the environment at all costs, they've been behaving more like Bush by the day, digging in their heels on Afghanistan, and announcing with much fanfare that soon they might maybe be announcing an environmental plan approach that completely lacks any teeth.

As if those things weren't baffling enough, their side projects are equally incomprehensible. Not only are they bringing back the same-sex marriage issue this fall, but they're also floating a possible federal Defence of Religions Act that sounds suspiciously like something Alberta's resident Rick Santorum clone, Ted Morton, would come up with. They're making their sitting MPs defend their seats in nomination battles, but rigging the vote for even their looniest caucus members. And in their spare time, they've been firing government scientists for refusing to participate in their war on rhetoric. The result is that they remain stuck at 36% in the polls, and their love-hate relationship with Quebec has swung decisively to the other end of that dial. Strange moves for a party that wants a majority so badly that you can almost see the drool on their slavering chops.

The Second Coming of Greg Bester seems to think we're witnessing the Conservatives coming apart at the seams, but after all the lessons we've learned about not underestimating our Dear Leader, I'm reluctant to come to the same conclusion. And on last week's edition of CPAC's Talk Politics, Susan Delacourt seemed to be equally disinclined to predict the Conservatives' defeat based on this strange new strategy:

Ken Rockburn: This is a guy who's looking for a majority government. You can see it in every move they make that this is what they're aiming at.

Susan Delacourt: Yeah.

Ken Rockburn: Is this one going to play out for him in this regard? If it goes on like this, you would think people would see him as at such a remove from your average Canadian that this whole movement he's proported to represent to begin with--that it might just backfire on him.

Susan Delacourt: Well, if it works, he's rewriting a few formulas. I'm loathe to make predictions because it's been a raucous few years in Canadian politics for predictions. But I will say that if it does work--if this sort of very authoritarian, controlling, disciplined kind of leadership works--then we've all been off on the wrong path.

So have Stephen Harper's Conservatives gone just a little bit crazy, or have they stumbled upon a winning strategy that none of the rest of us recognize? I would have thought I understood Canada well enough to say one way or the other, but in days like these I'm starting to think I shouldn't dare. And as for the leftdog's challenge to start posting more about the Tories, I'll do what I can, but lately I'm just too weirded out by what they're doing to do much more than sit here, slackjawed.