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Other prime ministers have thrived on galas and state dinners. But aside from the occasional chance to meet hockey greats, Harper would pass up ribbon-cuttings for strategy sessions.

He lives in a hard-drinking town, but never imbibes outside the occasional photo op. After the Parliament shootings last October, as shocked colleagues thirsted for a stiff drink, Harper called for a tall glass of Diet Coke.

He’s ruthless at destroying opponents, but — strangely for a career politician — takes no joy in it. In 2011, as Conservatives across Canada bubbled with schadenfreude at witnessing the political ruin of the Liberals’ Michael Ignatieff, it is unlikely their leader felt even a twang of guilty pleasure.

“He’s like a predator; there’s no emotion to it,” says Gerry Nicholls, who worked with Harper at the National Citizens’ Coalition, a conservative think tank. “When a wolf goes after a rabbit, it’s not because it hates rabbits.”

He “reads everything,” becoming the bane of a privy council that had grown accustomed to prime ministers skimming their reports. He is known to catch the tiniest of spelling errors — and respond with swift reprimands scribbled in the margins. Friends call this “meticulous,” enemies call it “micromanaging.”

He’s like a predator; there’s no emotion to it

He gets angry. But it’s not the out-of-control BlackBerry-throwing tantrum so common to Ottawa, it’s a measured expulsion of rage designed chillingly to drive a point home. One staffer has described it as a “spectacular thing.”

He comes from a Presbyterian background and has occasionally been spotted at an Ottawa evangelical church, but staffers haven’t heard him say a single religious thing— nor have they found him unwilling to work on a Sunday. Indeed, Harper chose to announce the current election on the Sabbath.

Perhaps most surprisingly, Canada’s socks-with-sandals prime minister harbours an uncanny talent for comic delivery.

Cynthia Williams, who dated Harper in university, says in private situations he has a dry wit akin to the TV character, Frasier Crane. “He was always making me laugh,” she says.

In policy meetings and hotel rooms, Conservative staffers have got used to his penchant for launching into impromptu impressions.

“I used to prep him for question period, and he would answer as Jean Chrétien or Brian Mulroney or John Diefenbaker,” says Keith Beardsley, a former senior adviser to Harper.

In speeches, he’s been known to mix partisan jabs with self-deprecating riffs.

“(My father) is an accountant, as are both my brothers. I decided to become an economist because I didn’t have the personality to be an accountant,” Harper told the 2002 Ottawa Press gallery dinner when he was opposition leader.