Not being a psychologist maybe I shouldn't say what I am about to say.
But it seems to me the federal Liberals are suffering from some sort of collective delusional disorder.
How else to explain the recent madcap utterances of Liberal Leader Stephane Dion and assorted other Liberal MPs about how they are ready and willing to force a federal election this fall?
Talk about being out of touch with political reality.
I mean let's be honest. The Dion-led Liberals have about as much chance of winning an election this fall as John Edwards has of being named Husband of the Year.
Yet -- and here's the real delusional part -- some Liberals actually believe the popularity of American Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama will somehow carry over to Stephane Dion and help lead him to victory.
As one unnamed Liberal MP recently told the media: "The sweet spot for calling a general election would be late November ... so you give people a little bit of an effect of the afterglow of hope and change with Obama."
Good theory.
But here's the less than sweet spot reality: Stephane Dion is no Barack Obama.
In fact, comparing Dion to Obama is like comparing a firecracker to an atom bomb or like comparing the CBC comedy Royal Canadian Air Farce to some other TV comedy that's actually funny.
CHARISMA
One obvious difference between the two men is charisma. Obama is so jam-packed with charisma it's practically seeping out of his ears. Dion, on the other hand, not only has no charisma he actually emits rays of "anti-charisma," which have been known to repel voters over a five-km radius.
That's why Obama and Dion must never meet.
If Star Trek has taught me anything, it's that if Obama's charisma were ever came into direct contact with Dion's anti-charisma, it would mean the total annihilation of our universe.
The other big difference between Dion and Obama is that Obama actually understands how politics works.
He understands, for instance, that to win an election a politician must stay away from complicated policy ideas.
Hence, Obama's election strategy is so simple it can be summed up in a single sentence: "Vote for me because I am not George Bush."
Dion, by contrast, has decided to pin his election hopes on persuading Canadians of the merits of his "Green Shift" scheme, a plan so convoluted even Stephen Hawking couldn't figure it out.
How convoluted is Dion's Green Shift plan?
Well let's put it this way, in the time it would take Dion to properly explain it to you, global warming would have melted three more glaciers.
None of this is to suggest Dion can't copy some of Obama's tactics.
CROWDS
Obama, for example, recently had a successful international tour which included a speech before a massive and adoring crowd in Berlin.
It would be a great idea for Dion to follow Obama's lead and hop on the next plane to Europe.
Of course, even if he were naked and standing atop the Eiffel Tower, Dion would never draw any kind of crowd overseas.
But that's not the point.
The point is Dion would be far away and the farther away he is from Canadian voters, the better it would be for the Liberal Party.
And that's no delusion.
