From the Washington Post:
BURLINGTON, Canada -- Rob Hlohinec, 58, doesn't see what's so bad about Americans. He even admits to knowing some.
"I've talked to Americans. They want the same things we want," Hlohinec said as he watched a Conservative Party campaign rally in this Ontario town last week.
At his side, Irene Heller, 82, agreed. She said that was one reason she would vote to replace the government headed by the Liberal Party's Paul Martin in Canadian national elections on Monday. Martin, she said, uses anti-Americanism to try to win votes.
"He gets votes when he knocks America, and I don't approve of that," said Heller, who braved a sleet storm to attend the rally.
The Liberal Party won by the skin of its teeth last time by playing on Anti-Americanism. This time it isn't flying.
The Conservative Party's lead in the polls hovers at about 10 percentage points, putting the party in position to lead a coalition government that would probably be more in tune with the Bush administration.
The Liberal Party's attack on Harper's American sympathies was mostly political posturing; Martin himself has sought good relations with the United States. But his party has a mixed history on the issue. The prime minister had to expel one member of Parliament who stomped on a Bush doll on television, and a spokeswoman for his Liberal Party predecessor, Jean Chretien, referred to the American president as a "moron."
The Liberals were resorting to a campaign tactic that had worked before; they successfully erased Harper's lead in the polls in the last election, in 2004, by painting him as too pro-American. But this time, some Canadians say they feel the anti-Americanism has gone too far.
"You would think that issue would be more fertile ground because there has been an erosion" in the relationship between Canadians and Americans since the last election, said Frank Graves, president of Ekos, an Ottawa polling company. "Both countries look at each other with less regard than before."
But surprisingly, Graves said, "the America card doesn't seem to have had much traction this time."
"We think it's wrong. We're not against Americans," said Linda Armstrong, 60, who attended the Burlington rally with her husband, Mike, 61, like her a retired schoolteacher.
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