Conquering Canada

Matthew Yglesias remembers plans for wars past:

In the wake of the American Civil War, British officials thought it likely that the Republican administration would use America's newfound large military establishment to once again try to conquer Canada in order to, among other things, dilute Southern electoral power after the reincorporation of the former rebel states. In retrospect, I sort of wish we'd done that."

It's really not too late, though. The United States has a much more powerful military than Canada does, and I think we'd find Ontario much more digestible than Iraq. In order to win Canadian hearts and minds, we'd only have to point out that Canadian NHL teams would start taking in American rather than Canadian dollars, and thus level that sport's financial playing field.

So which Democrat will take up the banner of northward expansion in 2008?