For the past few months, Paul Martin has been cast in the most unflattering light possible. Politically inept. Ethically deficient. Ideologically bankrupt. Personally dishonest. And worse.

Even with yesterday's success in keeping his government alive, much of that criticism still holds true. But what does that tell us about Stephen Harper?

With the government mired in scandal, the Prime Minister mistrusted by the majority of voters, and federal policy apparently being written on the backs of napkins over drinks with individual MPs, the Liberals should be ripe for an electoral pounding of Kim Campbellesque proportions.

And yet, the polls tell us otherwise. Not only are the Liberals competitive; they might actually be ahead of the Conservatives.

For that, we can mostly thank Mr. Harper's uncanny ability to let the Liberals up off the mat when they seem ready to go down for the count.

For a guy who usually seems so bloodless, Mr. Harper has a weird way of getting carried away with his own marginal success. And for the second time in less than a year, it's given Mr. Martin's government a new lease on life.

Conspiracy theories to the contrary, the media didn't rob the Tories of last year's election. In fact, for the first three weeks, it was Mr. Martin who was being savaged on a daily basis. Then Mr. Harper started counting his chickens - and suddenly, he was accusing his opponents of supporting child porn, boasting about his coming election win and going on triumphalist tours of the safest Conservative terrain in the country. It was a reminder of everything voters don't like about his personality - his smugness, his nasty edge, the chip on his shoulder that sees those who disagree with him treated with disdain - and the results on election day proved it.

You'd think he'd have learned his lesson. Instead, this spring he made a worse miscalculation.

After a post-election slump that saw Mr. Harper disappear into his own shadow, the Conservatives' fortunes were looking up in a big way. Their successful March policy convention notwithstanding, it mostly wasn't of their own doing: It was the startling revelations from the Gomery inquiry combined with Mr. Martin's non-existentpolicy agenda and clumsy messaging that had the Liberals in free-fall. All Mr. Harper had to do was sit back and let the Grits self-destruct.

Even that, though, was apparently too much to ask. Instead of letting the inquiry play out while Mr. Martin floundered, Mr. Harper got into full belligerent mode - deciding it was time for an immediate election, stampeding over caucus members (not to mention voters) who disagreed, and cranking up the rhetoric against the Liberals to the point of absurdity.

The strangest thing about this gambit was that the Tory leader seemed to assume the Liberals would just roll over and play dead. Instead, true to form for a party that's held power through most of Canada's history, they pulled out all the stops - making deals with the NDP, recruiting MPs over to their side, and launching a PR offensive of their own. Meanwhile, Mr. Harper managed to drive away a key member of his caucus - a blatantly opportunistic one, true, but one he'd also apparently upset with an ill-timed dressing-down days earlier.

All their shameless manoeuvring would probably hurt the Liberals in the polls - if, that is, Mr. Harper's fire-and-brimstone reaction to them didn't look even worse, his huffing and puffing only serving to again alienate him from members of the general public whose lives don't revolve around Ottawa. And to make matters worse, he aligned himself far more closely than he needed to with the Bloc Quebecois - a potentially disastrous move for a new party still struggling to brand itself, but one he continued yesterday by again praising the separatists.

The election push and everything that went with it was such a failure that earlier this week, there was actually speculation the Conservatives would sabotage their own vote. So now that they've got a few extra months, there's an obvious question to ask themselves: Can they afford to carry on with a leader who keeps proving to be his own worst enemy?

Assuming they don't try again to force an early campaign, the Conservatives should have at least six months before we go to the polls. It's enough time, improbable though it may seem, to put in place someone who won't actively turn off voters.

Yesterday, Mr. Harper's sour response to the Commons vote again made Mr. Martin look appealingly prime ministerial by comparison. When so many people would look good next to the PM, why stick with the one guy who doesn't?