The dilemma for the Right

Harper is dangerous to the Canadian left because he gets this dynamic (even if it's different in Canada), and has been far more successful at locking up the nutters:

The country is getting increasingly less white — and that might be the biggest problem facing the GOP right now. Ronald Reagan could afford to suffer losses among blacks and Hispanics and still win. John McCain couldn't. As The New York Times' John Harwood recently noted, McCain won the same percentage of the white vote that Ronald Reagan did in 1980 — and lost.

No matter how you cut the numbers, they're devastating for the GOP. Consider this fact from Gallup: Since 2001, Republicans have lost votes in every demographic group except churchgoers. And the party is sucking for air among young voters; Obama beat McCain by 35 points among voters under the age of 30.

If Republicans don't find a way to appeal to future generations of voters soon, they could be lost for decades; research shows that if young voters support the same party in three consecutive elections, they're likely to keep doing so for the rest of their lives.

"We can't go through another presidential election where we lose the youth, lose women and lose minorities and think we're going to get to a majority," said McCarthy.

The Ontario provincial Conservatives, I'd wager, will not be so successful.