the Conservatives released new television commercials portraying Harper as a strong, steady leader who has lowered taxes and shored up the military.

The election-style ads, in both English and French, feature Canadians who offer a positive assessment of Harper.

"Stephen Harper’s the kind of person who knows where he stands. He’s a straight-up guy," one man says in the advertisement.

The 30-second spots are in sharp contrast to a spate of Conservative commercials released earlier in the summer, which focused on attacking Dion and his proposal to tax carbon emissions.

LINK: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/08/29/harper-duceppe.html

An election hasn’t been called yet, but the Conservatives have probably booked their media and are already launching a slew of ‘pre-campaign’ TV ads designed to depict Harper as a ‘straight up’ guy.

Are these ads even legal?  Does this mean we’re in election mode or not?  If we are, then announce a bloody election.  If we’re not, then stop running ads.

Since when does ‘straight up’ mean slashing programs because they don’t suit your ideology and hand-cuffing food inspectors so that it leads to the death of a dozen unsuspecting Canadians?

The biggest question:  are Canadians going to see through the rhetoric and know full well that Harper isn’t strong, but he’s just a big bully?