Undoing Rove's Canadian Legacy

This History News Network featured an exchange between two history professors wondering if Obama should govern from the Centre or The Left (http://hnn.us/articles/58194.html). Listen to this passage about the beginning of George W. presidency:

When President Bush struck early, thinking big and broadly, one Democratic senator proposed minor changes to Bush’s controversial tax cuts. The senator promised that with those compromises, “I guarantee you’ll get seventy votes out of the Senate.” Rove replied, “We don’t want seventy votes. We want fifty-one.” This polarizing take-no-prisoners attitude alienated many and derailed Bush’s presidency.

The Rovian world view that everything is political and every chance to press one's political advantage must be acted on seems to resonate with the current Prime Minsiter. How might he move away from such a political orientation? Read this from the same exchange, only pop in the Canadian equivalent where necessary:

It starts with repudiating the George W. Bush-Karl Rove 50-percent-plus-one strategy of simply mobilizing enough partisans to ensure re-election. But it entails picking moderate, non-ideological advisers – as Obama has done so far. It entails reaching out symbolically and substantively to Republicans and more conservative Democrats – as Obama has done so far. And it entails singing a song of centrism while advancing constructive, bridge-building policies that are rooted in the ideas of one camp but acknowledge the concerns of the opposition.

Does Steven Harper have this within him? Prediction: sure, but it will be short-lived. If the coalition gets significant cracks in it or his poll numbers go through the roof, he'll soon return to his lesser nature.