Danger, Stephen Harper!

According to the polls, Stephen Harper is opening up a commanding lead on Stephane Dion and the Liberals. Or rather, Stephane Dion and the Liberals are watching the bottom fall out of their polling numbers, even in what is always referred to as "vote-rich" Ontario. Chantal Hebert in today's Toronto Star, muses that Harper--who admires Jean Chretien's political savvy while sharing pretty much none of his politics--must be gleefully watching Dion stumble and bumble, bringing the prospect of a federal election closer with every passing day.
Here's some free advice to Stephen Harper: don't do it. Don't call an election, and don't engineer your defeat in the House to arrange one, either.
There are several reasons for this. The first is that there is no compelling reason to go to the polls right now. The Opposition periodically floats out trial balloon issues, centering mostly around Afghanistan and the environment, but neither of those issues can sustain a campaign.
Afghanistan is, granted, a thorn. The Conservatives still haven't done enough, in my view, to educate Canadians on why we're there, what good we're doing, and where we're going from here. But you can bet that in the middle of a campaign, Harper wouldn't hesitate to go for the jugular--the Liberals sent our soldiers into harm's way, the argument would go, and there have already been two Parliamentary votes (the first largely forgotten) confirming the resolve of the House. Our mission is in place until 2009. If Harper wanted to fight dirty, he could accuse Dion of not caring for the women and children of Afghanistan, since pulling our troops would almost certain result in more oppression for both groups.
And, as the attack ads have noted, even fellow Liberals (Michael Ignatieff, in the ad I saw over and over last month) have begun to realize that the environment, far from being Dion's strong suit, is actually his Achilles' heel. While the Conservatives badly flubbed the environment file out of the gate, they're beginning to come around: my guess is that you'll see some strong initiatives put forth by the end of this month. Meanwhile, Dion was, as is famous by now, a do-nothing Environment Minister.
The problem for Harper, though, is that Canadians aren't in the mood for yet another trip to the polls. The minority government is working, far better than the last one, and polling shows that many are still leery of giving Harper the majority he craves. It's not that his numbers are so good: it's more of a case of Dion's being so bad.
I read recently--in the Sun, I think--that going back ten federal elections, no party, leading in the polls at the outset, has ever gained in popularity as the campaign wore on. In other words, Harper's numbers likely have nowhere to go but down. That must gall our PM: even his foes admit he's run a fairly competent government and exceeded expectations in many areas, and yet people are still afraid he'll morph into Dubya if they trust him a wee bit more. Nevertheless, as is often said in politics and in life, perception is reality. So Stephen Harper would be ill-advised to call an election just yet.