I don’t think it’s Obamamania in Canada so much as Harperphobia. Stephen Harper, leading a minority government (only 36% voted for him in the last election), shares the seats in the house of commons with three other parties, one of which is a Quebec sovereignty party.

Harper is a Bush Lite prime minister. He was pro the war in Iraq when he was a member of the opposition, he’s pro- big business and destructive oil development, he’s an evangelical Christian, he really doesn’t like women or gays very much, he loves military expansionism and intervention in other countries and he’s a control freak. The whole show is literally run by him. No one else is allowed to sneeze without clearing it through his office first.

Also, he’s been trying to boost a two-tier health care system in the country for ages. Private clinics equal private enterprise. Those who can, pay, and those who can’t, wait. As such, he represents very few people in the country.

Unfortunately, the other political party leaders are kind of missing in action. Canada may be stuck with minority governments for years.

I used to kind of like Obama, even with his blatting on about “changing America and then changing the world”, without even thinking that the rest of the world might like him to simply mind his own business and stop supporting invasions every five minutes, but his recent rightward shift is kind of scary. Sucking up to the Cuban anti-Castro mafia in Florida, the pro-Israel lobby groups, especially AIPAC, and the gung-ho militarism is really sad.

Yesterday, I noticed on a news video that he had caved and is now wearing a flag lapel pin.

How is he now different from anybody else?

You’re right BobZ..it IS one more reason to elect him, even though the Obama-bashers have relentlessly complained that his health care system is NOT universal health care.

AND..that much, (specifically in comparison to Canada’s) is true. It’s not single-payer system, or anywhere close to a perfect system, or anywhere close to what Canada has.

In fact, it’s only a start, and we have to hope that we can persuade him to move forward on a better plan. What the Obama-bashers consistently fail to recognize though, is that it’s STILL better than what they have now, which for at least 50 million, is NOTHING, because none of it is affordable.

For another 50 million, they’re actually paying unaffordable prices, and STILL not getting anything for their money. So what Obama plans IS at least better than THAT!

But, that’s not the ONLY reason to vote for him, or why he should be the president. It’s far more basic than that. Unless he is elected, we’re looking at a PERMANENT Fascist society from which we will NEVER recover, and neither will the great-great-grandkids. The ones not even born yet.

I’m always curious as to why folks have taken up calling him a ‘rockstar’. I just don’t see him that way at all. Maybe it’s just the envy and resentment that EJ Dionne mentioned. He’s one of the few to actually speak it out loud and in writing.

So, Canadians heart Obama but also their very own single-payer healthcare system, the latter rightly so, one might add. Were Obama their guy (and not, by the way, Steven Harper, for whom Canadians indirectly voted and whose government has been trying to give boot to American troops trying to escape stop-loss) they’d not have the healthcare system they also heart. They’d have instead “universal” healthcare system, which per Obama would amount to nothing less than forcing people to pay insurance companies, no matter the senator’s qualifiers.

Is there any chance we here in the states could trade Obama for Canadian healthcare system? I can hear--from down here in LA--Canadians yelling back: “Not is this life, pal!” Unless my hearing has gotten worse, which maybe it has.

But thanks to northern neighbors for…I have not much idea what. Envying Americans a so-called “rock-star,” apparently.

No surprise that Canadians are more opposed to Iraq war than U.S. We still have American’s drinking the Bush koolaid. What is surprising is how strongly Canadians feel about their health care system, contrary to what we are told by our health care lobbyists in the U.S. We are the victims of a massive health care scam and are finally beginning to realize it. One more reason to elect Barack Obama in November.