MAKING PERFECT SENSE...

So, those evil geniuses inside the CON bridal suite war room have discovered our achilles heel...

"Notwithstanding Ignatieff's poll numbers, where he's seen as competent and popular, what our polling and focus group testing shows is that people really don't have a solid impression about him. They generally like the guy, but they don't really know anything about him. According to our polling, he's an unknown quantity in the eyes of Canadians. So, since people don't have a locked in, fixed impression about him, there's still a tremendous amount of opportunity to influence what people think about the guy," the Conservative source told The Hill Times in a not-for-attribution based interview last week.

The source said that right now the absence of adequate information about Mr. Ignatieff (Etobicoke-Lakeshore, Ont.) is hurting Prime Minister Stephen Harper's (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) image because without a fully fleshed-out alternative, Mr. Harper is compared to an imaginary ideal Prime Minister. "The media when they cover the government, they say here's what the government is doing and here's how it deviates from perfection," said the Conservative. "It's always Harper vs. the perfect prime minister, and in that battle we always lose, but that's how the daily media coverage goes: Here's how he's not living up to the ideal image."

So it's come down to this: Harper needs to be compared against something less than perfect. While Michael Ignatieff seems to have the Liberal leadership thing all wrapped up, I'm thinking Harper would be more comfortable if his opponent had more in common with his own strategic genius, like him, this mastermind, or maybe this guy. I guess, only in Harper's perfect, imaginary world.