Political game starting to get good on both sides of the border

It looks like this fall is going to be chock full of election fun in North America and I want to weigh in on both major elections.
First, let's look at the homefront.
Whether the opposition flips the switch or the prime minister does it, it looks pretty certain we're going to have an election.
So, enough of the pussy-footing, let's just get it on.
Even if he calls it himself, which it looks like Prime Minister Stephen Harper is going to do, he is trying to find ways to blame the opposition. Initially, Harper appeared to be hoping the opposition would defeat the government and force a vote, which would allow him to heap all of the blame on the opposition.
Now, his patience has worn thin and he's come up with a thin excuse that Parliament is "dysfunctional" and it can't operate the way it exists.
The make-up of Parliament, for the most part, is no different now than it was a year ago. Dysfunctional is simply code for this: not everything I want is passing the House of Commons and I want to be able to do anything I want.
Even with a minority, most of the legislation his party has put forward, including its budgets, has passed. Harper has accomplished most of what he has set out to do, with only a few things being thwarted. The truth is, when he says dysfunctional, he means minority. He wants a majority just like his mentor Brian Mulroney had and he's tired of waiting for the fixed election date to come.
However, barring a huge shift on election day, he'll likely emerge with another minority government. The PM will then have to accept that he just can't do everything he wants because people will not want to see candidates knocking on doors after a few months.
It's obvious Harper wants a majority government and there's nothing wrong with a politician wanting that. Instead of making up reasons, Harper should just be honest with the public. He'll get more respect for that honesty.
As for the U.S. election, the spotlight has been firmly aimed at Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama this week, with the party's convention.
Obama, who many have painted as a man who can do no wrong, made two gaffes this week (as of this writing), one major and one minor.
The minor gaffe came on Monday night as his wife Michelle delivered her speech at the first night of the convention, leaving me to wonder if the Democrats had picked the wrong Obama.
After her speech, she and their two children spoke to him via satellite.
While he spoke to his family and the audience, the screen said he was in Kansas City, Mo. He informed them he was sitting in St. Louis and then stumbled through a rundown of who he was with at the time. His younger daughter then made his gaffe more obvious when she asked where he was and he corrected himself by saying Kansas City.
Right state and wrong city.
The city screw-up and the subsequent stumbling made him look like a very ordinary orator, something he's been anything but through this campaign. Sure, it's not a big screw up but Obama has been a candidate of style over substance and when that's how you're campaigning, a mistake that hurts your image is not good.
The second gaffe, the bigger mistake, was picking Delaware Senator Joe Biden as his running mate.
Obama has exuded youth and exuberance and bringing on a 65-year-old like Biden diminishes that image. Plus, Biden ran against Obama for the nomination and made negative comments about the presidential nominee. Those comments have already been thrown back at the nominee.
As well, a Democrat does not need a lot of help in the northeast. Biden does help with the swing state of Pennsylvania because he's from Philadelphia originally and lives next door in tiny Delaware, but it doesn't seem like he's going to make that much of a difference.
I think he should have gone for Kathleen Sebelius, the smart, strong governor of Kansas, who could've helped in the heartland and in the swing state of Ohio, where her father was once governor. This move would likely have kept most of the Hillary Clinton supporters from becoming disinterested because they knew bringing in Clinton as v-p candidate was just not an option after all the negative things she said about Obama.
If Obama's people were worried about making the ticket too much of a groundbreaker and wanted to stick with a white man, then either Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia or Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana would have made better choices than Biden. They both would have opened up valuable states and regions that are not slam dunks for the Democrats like Delaware. Both are more than a decade younger than Biden and neither one campaigned against Obama.
But Obama's made his play. The next question is who will Republican John McCain pick to be his vice-presidential candidate.
I still think it should be someone who appeals to the religious right. He already makes that valuable sector of the party skittish. If he appoints pro-choice, former Pennsylvania governor and Homeland Security boss Tom Ridge as his running mate, he may kiss off a huge chunk of voters that may decide to stay home on election day.
But we'll see which path McCain chooses over the next week.

Jason Small can be reached at 691-1255.