OTTAWA - The Liberal cheers, chants, and hugs were utterly predictable. But the relative optimism of Canadian Conservatives in the face of a Barack Obama presidency was slightly less so.
A crowd of jubilant Liberals crammed Tuesday into an Irish pub just a stone's throw from Parliament Hill to cheer the charismatic Democratic front-runner to victory.
But amid all that revelry they predicted several benefits of the historic election outcome for their arch-rival, Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
One prominent Liberal wearing an Obama lapel sticker predicted that the Democrat win would allow the Conservatives to shake off the biggest albatross dogging their government.
"We can't play the Bush card on them anymore," he said.
The Liberals have used against Harper his support for the invasion of Iraq, for the detention of Omar Khadr at Guantanamo Bay, and the anti-Kyoto stance he shares with the deeply unpopular White House incumbent.
For their part, Conservatives gathered at a variety of events in the nation's capital, none of them a bash that was nearly as large as the Liberal celebration.
Nor did they share the unabashed enthusiasm of their rivals for the dawn of the Obama era. But they expressed confidence that the page will finally turn on the bashing-by-Bush-association.
"Most (of us) are leaning towards Obama," one Conservative staffer said. "But still the general overall thought, I think for us, is that either (one) is better than George W."
There are expectations on both sides of the Commons aisle that Harper will find political benefit by aligning himself with Obama on various files.
On climate change, for instance, neither Harper or Obama favours Kyoto-style emissions targets.
But while Harper has so far faced condemnation and accusations of climate recalcitrance from his opponents, he might actually draw political benefit from working with Obama on the climate file. Even Liberals who jubilantly cheered on the Democrat shared that assessment.
"He's going to be Harper's best friend," said one spokesperson in the former Liberal government.
That honeymoon could well be cut short by the recurring challenges of Canada-U.S. relations: a desire for more Canadian troops in Afghanistan, trade-stifling protectionism within U.S. Congress, or the increasingly tight border security since 9-11.
But at this stage, the ripple effect of Canadians' infatuation with Obama has been felt right up to the highest echelons of government.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his inner circle have issued edicts on at least two occasions for Conservative staffers to steer clear of the U.S. election.
The first order went out to cabinet ministers in the midst of last winter's NAFTA scandal. A leaked diplomatic memo had just undermined Obama's campaign and Harper's own chief of staff was dragged into the affair.
The second came in a meeting before John McCain's visit to Ottawa last summer.
Harper's communications director at the time -- Sandra Buckler -- asked her counterparts in ministerial offices whether they planned to attend his speaking engagement.
One staffer said Buckler answered her own question in the next breath: "If you are, you shouldn't be."
David Emerson, foreign affairs minister at the time, wound up going. But government brass did not want a cheering section of eager young Conservative staffers at the event.
They were desperate to avoid the perception they were taking sides in the U.S. race, in particular against the popular Democratic candidate.
Polls suggest Obama has a whopping six times more support in Canada than his Republican rival.
The governing party's prescribed neutrality in this election stands in stark contrast with the 2004 presidential race.
In the last U.S. election, as in this one, Liberals and New Democrats were unapologetically supportive of the Democratic ticket. Liberal cabinet ministers openly cheered on John Kerry.
Conservatives were far less ambiguous about their presidential preference back then.
At an election-night party in 2004, Peter Van Loan -- now the public safety minister who will work with the new U.S. administration on border security, but at the time an opposition MP -- cheerfully pumped his fist and exclaimed, "Yes!" upon learning that George W. Bush had taken Ohio.
Conservative partisans collected Bush-Cheney '04 T-shirts.
And the Liberals took the extraordinary step of calling a news conference last year to point out that a Bush-Cheney souvenir poster was hanging on the wall of a staff member in Harper's office in the Langevin building.
Much of today's neutrality could be attributed to the responsibility of power and the need to maintain a good working relationship with the next American administration.
But there appears to be another phenomenon at play: Obama actually seems to have a number of Conservative fans.
The signs are evident on the Facebook pages of card-carrying Conservative partisans -- some of which include pro-Obama slogans like, "Yes We Can." They are found on small-c conservative blogs, where the volume of Obama endorsements seems to rival those for McCain.
But the strongest evidence of conservative Canada's relative fondness for Obama is laid bare in the polling numbers.
Surveys by the polling firm Harris-Decima suggest that even in a hypothetical election where the only people voting were Canadian Tories, Obama would deliver a drubbing to McCain.
One government official -- and staunch Conservative partisan -- admitted he's been hearing strange sounds from some of his colleagues lately.
"I'm a solid Republican myself," he said.
"But there really is this Conservatives-for-Obama thing going on."
