RICHMOND, B.C. - Stephen Harper has raised the prospect of "Prime Minister Dion" in an unorthodox but calculated Conservative bid to sharpen the choices faced by voters just a long weekend away from decision day.
In normal times, a campaigning prime minister would never confer the top title onto his chief opponent.
But these are not normal times for a Conservative party that has watched its safe, commanding lead in public opinion polls melt away over the last week.
A Canadian Press Harris-Decima poll Thursday showed the campaign firming up into a two-horse race -- yet one without broad public enthusiasm for either of the front-runners.
The Tories polled 32 per cent -- down from a high of 41 early in the campaign -- with the Liberals under Leader Stephane Dion five points back at 27 per cent.
The New Democrats sat at 19 per cent, the Greens at 12 per cent and the Bloc Quebecois at eight.
"There will be one of two outcomes," Harper said Thursday at a news conference before heading east for a crucial, final weekend of campaigning in Ontario and Quebec.
"There will either be Prime Minister Dion, who will tackle our economic problems by increasing spending that we cannot afford and increasing taxes to pay for it. Or our government, which will keep spending under control and keep taxes going down.
"Those are the two choices to deal with the economic problems in front of us."
It was no slip of the tongue for a prime minister not known for message freelancing.
Harper repeated the Dion-as-prime-minister line three times. And he used it to remind voters that they could end up electing a Liberal government by accident, in the event of a narrow Tory minority that immediately gets toppled once Parliament sits.
That could lead Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean to invite the second-place party to see if it could form a government.
The proposed Liberal carbon tax would fund higher government spending, said Harper, and "will drive us into recession.
"That is what will happen if you get prime minister Dion, either directly or by the opposition parties helping him to take power."
Harper returned to the theme later in the same news conference, stating it should be "obvious this is a real choice in this election where power could change hands."
For a prime minister who precipitated this election by ignoring his own fixed-date election law a month ago, the prospect is not mere rhetorical fodder.
The Tories have gone from supreme assurance only a week ago to rattled frustration heading into the Thanksgiving weekend finale.
Their daily script has become perfunctory and pro forma. Harper announced some $25 million in funding Thursday for two health projects, one a National Lung Health Network and the other a four-year study on Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.
On Wednesday in Victoria, where Harper made some similarly minor health announcements, tempers flared repeatedly as Conservative campaign staff loudly snapped at journalists over their reporting. Tory partisans also jeered media questions during a news conference with the prime minister.
The cumulative impact of a global credit crisis, nosediving stock markets, a deadly listeriosis outbreak that keeps rearing back to life and a report on the price tag for the Afghan military mission has been battering a Conservative campaign that was planned with military precision. The blows have taken their toll.
"I've said from the outset that I believe this is a close election that can go any way. I've said that from Day One," Harper said Thursday -- on Day 32 of the campaign.
