OTTAWA – Stephen Harper made two very different sales pitches for his economic plan this week: one a public pep talk to jittery Canadians, the other a private smoothing-of-the-feathers for uneasy conservatives.
The marquee speech Canadians saw on television Tuesday or read about the next day was about how the economy would recover swiftly and strongly through targeted spending in the budget.
The other was behind closed doors Thursday evening to a group of key conservatives – sharply partisan remarks that ripped into the Liberals, libertarians, the Obama administration's tax policies and Wall Street.
The prime minister spoke at a conference sponsored by the Manning Centre for Building Democracy, a conservative think-tank run by former Reform Party leader Preston Manning.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/602131#He must be running scared. Probably afraid Bush will overtake him in Calgary next week.