Waiting for Harpot

The first cool wind of the season is cutting through a crowd of reporters outside Harold Panabaker Junior High School, in the riding held by Stephen Harper, Calgary Southwest. The event? That election-day mainstay, ballot-casting by the incumbent PM.

A quiet little tree-lined road, campaign signs are scarce here. No one is home at the one house with a Harper placard. Really, the only indication this is at all a special day is that flock of photographers and reporters waiting to see Harper, who will no doubt be immaculately coiffed, vote for himself. "I must be the one Canadian who doesn’t like Obama," says one hack idly. Just then, the sun bursts through the cloud cover.