“They want to bask in the same glory,” said Nelson Wiseman, an associate professor at the University of Toronto. “Nobody would have gone to Ottawa to try to get a glimpse of Bush except to demonstrate against him.”

Obama goes to Canada on Thursday
for his first foreign visit as president. It will be short, about six hours long. He is not staying for dinner.
But he will meet with Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper for a working lunch and a joint news conference. He will also meet briefly with Liberal opposition leader Michael Ignatieff at the airport before he leaves.

“If he's here five hours or five minutes he's welcome on Canadian territory,” Ignatieff said. “We hope this is the first of many visits.”

Harper will be want to be seen as close to Obama, unlike with Bush, said David Biette, director of the Canada Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington.

“Most Canadians found George W. Bush radioactive,” Biette said. “Canadians love Obama, so Harper has a much freer range to make motions toward the United States.”

Ronald Reagan, Bush's father, and Bill Clinton made Canada their first stop, but Bush went to Mexico. Canadians felt snubbed.

When Bush visited in 2004, about 8,000 Canadians protested largely because of America's actions in Iraq.

This time, “we anticipate that the crowds will be very enthusiastic,” Ottawa Police Supt. Charles Bordeleau said.

Jessica Franklanv, an employee of Bang-on T-shirts, said they've sold hundreds of Obama T-shirts.

Obama relied heavily on governors to help drum up support for his economic stimulus package. Perhaps his most notable alliance was forged with the Republican governor of Florida, Charlie Crist.

We all remember how Governor Palin collected “per diem” payments, which are designed to compensate legislators and state employees for meals and lodging when they are working far from home. The difference between the per diem money Palin collected, and the per diem money that legislators collect, is that they collect it when they are in Juneau. Palincollects it while living in her own home in Wasilla, and for eating moose chili in her own kitchen. As a matter of fact, she charged the state for 312 nights in Wasilla in her first 19 months in office. (Gets out calculator….tap tap tap…that’s….54% of the time) Last time I checked, the official duty station for the governor is the capital, which is actually Juneau, not Wasilla.

The governor’s office wouldn’t say this week how much she owes in back taxes for meal money, or whether she intends to continue to receive the per diem allowance. As of December, she was still charging the state for meals and incidentals.

“The amount of taxes owed is a private matter,” Sharon Leighow, Palin’s spokeswoman, said in an e-mail. “If the governor collects future per diem, those documents would be a matter of public record.”

Back in September, the Washington Post reported that Palin had charged the residents of Alaska $17,000 for ”meals and incidentals”, and paid no taxes on it. That’s more than a full-time minimum wage worker in the state of Alaska makes in a year. Nice income, if it actually worked that way.