Small earthquake in Canada

My op-ed piece in today's New York Times -- all 673 words of it -- attempts to explain the significance of this election to the Americans. Included are such intricacies as the meaning of minority governments, the nature and longevity of the Liberals' dynastic rule, the particular history of the last 12 years of one-party government, the scandals and internal rivalries, the rise and fall of Paul Martin, the reunification of the right and the continuing divisions within (libertarians v social conservatives, radical reformers vs moderates), plus a short sketch of Stephen Harper, his major policy ambitions, and the incrementalist approach he adopted for this campaign, whose basic themes are briefly recapitulated. Then, in the second half ... I describe his immediate strategic objective -- recasting Canadian politics as a functioning two-party system -- and the major institutional and political reforms this will require. All in 673 words: They told me I'd have 700, so we had to condense it a bit. There was a lovely sentence explaining the history of federal elections in Quebec ...