On the face of it, the election of Donald Trump in the United States this month and last year’s election of Justin Trudeau in Canada had precious little in common.

The American election was a vile affair, filled with misrepresentation, outright lying, racism, hate and character assassination. The Canadian election was a relatively clean, though hard-fought, campaign that for the most part stayed within the bounds of acceptable political discourse and conduct.

The vulgar and narcissistic Donald Trump – isolationist, misogynist and xenophobic – was elected president of the United States last Tuesday night, and the sky did not fall.

Next day, the sun came up, and the sky still did not fall. Americans went to work and their children to school. The stock market defied predictions; instead of collapsing, it rose to record highs. 

Everyone is nervous today.

No one, least of all the players most intimately involved, knows what may happen tomorrow in what is one of the closest and certainly the most divisive election in modern American history – an election that pits distrust of Hillary Clinton against fear of Donald Trump.

A campaign that began on high ground with the prospect of electing the first woman president to succeed the first black president ends in the sewer as voters go to the polls tomorrow amid allegations of lying, criminal behaviour and electoral fraud.

"Sunny ways, my friends, sunny ways."

Trudeau believed that the positive tone of his campaign was a key factor for helping him win the last election. This positive tone was in stark contrast to the generally negative tone that Harper's Team took during the previous elections.  Which strategy, Harper's or Trudeau's, was more effective at winning votes?