The Harper Team - not ready for prime time

Steven Harper called an election despite his governments own legislation that set an election date for fall of 2009. Why did he do this - political expediency. They want a majority and the polls seemed good. Nothing wrong with that - it's politics. The election campaign has demonstrated, however, that while the Tories might do O.K. as a minority government, they are not ready for a full fledged mandate from the people to implement a conservative agenda.
The gaffes and comments of several conservative ministers, off the tight leash of Mr. Harper, have been revealing. The Listeria comment, the staffer's condescending comments towards a native person, reveal that too many of conservative team remain insensitive, uncaring and apparently unable to appreciate the complexity of issues and governance.
An example is The Harper solution to youth crime - toughen sentences and send serious young offenders to prison to do serious time. It is true there are young thugs with guns that need to be dealt with effectively, but just sending them to adult prison (the university of crime) is not the answer. What kind of people will they be when they get out and they will get out eventually, but Harper doesn't appreciate this. The tough-love, jail them all solution has not worked in the U.S. - why would it work here?
The Harper government has performed better that I would have predicted at caretaking the nation over the past three years. Still, I don't think they have the insight and judgement required to use a majority mandate in an effective and thoughtful manner. At the same time, the opposition is in disarray and Stephan Dion, an intelligent and sensitive man, has simply not caught on with the electorate.
The outcome of the election is likely to be another Tory minority. That will be fine while the opposition sort themselves for the next election. The Harper team are not ready for a majority mandate from the electorate. After the election, all parties must get back to work governing and legislating collectively. It hasn't worked so bad for the past three years -- it can work again.