As for the Liberals, there's a significant cadre that really likes Ignatieff, for whom I frankly don't care at all - in quite a few ways, he's more bush-lite than Harper, too hawkish by far, and was thirty years out of Canada.

Elizabeth, I think, never thought she had a chance, was surprised to win the fight to get into the debate. I think initially she thought running against MacKay would raise her profile nationally because of it being Peter.

I do admire Elizabeth to some extent, but I think she has the capacity to be ruthless about people. I also wish she'd quit name-dropping - she makes damn sure everybody knows that she personally knows Bill Clinton. Her family came here (to Margaree) from the states when she was quite young. Her parents were eccentric to say the least, nice enough people, but they riled people in Margaree regularly by promoting environmental issues that directly adversely affected their neighbours.

Margaree was what you might call 'insular'. I knew an old Acadian man in the area whose main source of pride was that he'd used a draft horse and a stone sledge to clear the entire side of a mountain on his farm over the years. That and the twenty-one children he and his wife had. (I love that family, actually - they were very kind to me).