It’s bad luck, according to one old superstition, to leave a building by a different door than the one you used to enter it. Stephen Harper has taken the good-luck route.

The former prime minister made his exit from political life the same way he entered it. His videotaped farewell was entirely in keeping with the character we came to know over the past decade — disciplined, tightly scripted, alone and, above all, conservative in every sense of the word.

Until today, in fact, Harper had said his farewells only to his fellow Conservatives — the folks gathered with him in Calgary on election night last fall, the caucus a couple of weeks later and the party convention last May. Today, Harper spoke — albeit at a distance — to Canadians of all political stripes:

“As I bid farewell to the Parliament of Canada, and prepare for the next chapter of my life, my eternal thanks to the constituents of Calgary Heritage, to the members of the Conservative party, and to all Canadians for having given me the honour of serving the best country in the world,” Harper said in his video.

Viewers may notice that the former PM carefully staged his farewell in front of an empty table. This is the same man, after all, who chose to portray himself in TV ads as the guy working alone late into the night, turning out the lights when he left the building.

It’s not easy for prime ministers to leave with the same image they had on taking the job. One of my favourite, unwritten rules of politics is the ‘rule of opposites’: Canadian prime ministers tend to be remembered for traits completely at odds to the ones they had before getting the job.

Pierre Trudeau came to office wanting to be known as someone who valued reason over passion, but his legacy, good and bad, revolved around the passions he stirred up. Brian Mulroney was known to care more about popularity than ideas; he left office deeply unpopular but respected (at least in some quarters) for leading the big policy shifts of his era, such as free trade, the GST and the drama surrounding attempts to update the Constitution. Jean Chrétien started as the “little guy from Shawinigan” and ended as the “friendly dictator.” Paul Martin was known as a competent, fiscally-focused deficit-slayer before he took office, only to be mocked as a ditherer when he finally became PM.

In both incarnations — Harper before becoming PM, and Harper after — he was always a lone wolf, unlike many other politicians who like to see politics as a team sport. Harper always gave the sense — as he did in his farewell video — that there was someplace else he’d rather be. In both incarnations — Harper before becoming PM, and Harper after — he was always a lone wolf, unlike many other politicians who like to see politics as a team sport. Harper always gave the sense — as he did in his farewell video — that there was someplace else he’d rather be.

Many years ago, I was at my desk writing a story that mentioned this rule (I believe I was trying to see how it applied to Martin). Harper, then the opposition leader, phoned me while I was in the middle of writing. (This was in those long-ago days when he still spoke to journalists.) I told him that if he became PM, he should pay attention to the rule and cultivate an image the exact inverse of how he wanted to be remembered.

Harper said the rule of opposites had already been applied to him. Everyone thought he was a rigid ideologue who would have nothing to do with his political rivals, he said — but hadn’t he united the warring factions of the right in Canada, the Canadian Alliance and the old Progressive Conservative party?

I disagreed, telling him that most people thought of him as anything but rigid and unapproachable. When he was a Reform party MP, he was the go-to guy for smart, plain-spoken analysis. He was one of the few politicians around back then who had been able to transform himself into a media pundit on CBC’s old Politics broadcast in the late 1990s. The Harper of those days was always happy to talk to reporters on and off the record. He had a biting wit and a sharp curiosity about how political journalism worked.

By that measure, incidentally, he did live up to the rule of opposites. The most media-friendly of MPs became the most media-unfriendly prime minister we’ve seen in Canada in many decades. We all know that story; we don’t need to rake it over again here, on the day he said goodbye to Parliament.

But in both incarnations — Harper before becoming PM, and Harper after — he was always a lone wolf, unlike many other politicians who like to see politics as a team sport. Harper always gave the sense — as he did in his farewell video — that there was someplace else he’d rather be.

Another story from his pre-PM days, one that reporters who were present like to recount:

It was the night of the annual garden party at the opposition leader’s residence, Stornoway, and Harper had arrived late because of business in the Commons. He stopped to chat with reporters on the driveway as he walked in, dressed in a suit and tie.

Midway through the conversation, he turned to his wife, Laureen, and said he should go inside and change into more casual attire. Laureen said it wasn’t a good idea: “You know if you go inside, you won’t come back out,” she said, laughing.

Crowds and cocktail chit-chat were never Harper’s forte.

The question now is what Harper will do with his well-earned reputation as a loner, now that he’s put politics behind him. He’ll no doubt work late into the night, alone, no matter where his new business, ‘Harper and Associates,’ finds itself employed. He’ll still have to mix with people from time to time, however.

For now, just like in those TV ads, Harper has left the building. Parliament Hill can carry on without him. This time, he didn’t turn out the lights.

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