As we close in on one year of Stephen Harper's majority, it is evident that this is a very special government. YOU are just not on its list of priorities.

It's not that this government does not have causes to which it is deeply committed: low taxes for business and the wealthy; the petroleum industry; military might; and prisons. If these are the government's positives, its negatives follow directly from them.

On the face of it, this election campaign has thus far largely been free of what one might call the language of a culture war. Stephen Harper has explicitly said a majority Conservative government would not open up the politics of abortion or same-sex rights. The opposition parties have learned from the last election that harping on the threat of a "hidden agenda" doesn't work particularly well anymore. Sure, it seems that the Conservative party may have borrowed liberally from the U.S. to construct a Canadian version of Tea Party-esque ads. But it is hard to argue that there is anything like the vitriol we see routinely south of the border.

Stephen Harper's announcement that he is going to reach his deficit elimination goal a year early and do it by lopping $11 billion off federal spending is in effect lifting the veil on his long feared "hidden agenda." It is hidden no more as the polling numbers, for both his leadership and his party's support, hold steady at high enough numbers that he can imagine a majority.