22 Minutes' Geri Hall gets handcuffed for having a crush on Harper!

My colleague, Andrew Mayeda, is on the road this week with the Prime Minister and sends along the following from Halifax:

Is it the sweater vests, the carefully coiffed dome of hair? Or is it just the power that comes with being prime minister?

Apparently single women voters can’t contain themselves around Stephen Harper.

At a press conference in Halifax on Friday morning, a fetching young woman in a low-cut blouse and black skirt sat in the second row. Her presence did not go unnoticed by some male reporters covering Harper’s campaign.

Suddenly, while the prime minister was fielding a question on gas prices, the woman stood up and approached him.

“I’m so sorry, I’ll be so brief. I represent the single females out there,” she said, as RCMP officers jumped in. “Girls love a guy with a sense of humour. We could have a little fun.”

The prime minister’s security detail whisked her out the door, but not before she shared her true feelings: “Stephen Harper, I love you.”

It was later revealed that the woman was Geri Hall, a cast member on CBC’s spoof news show, This Hour Has 22 Minutes.

Party officials say they knew who she was beforehand, but had no idea what she had planned. In fact, RCMP officers slapped handcuffs on Hall before they realized it was all a joke.

Harper took it in stride. When Presse Canadienne reporter Fannie Olivier prepared to ask the next question, he said, “And you, too?” To which Olivier replied, “No, I have no declarations of love to make today.”

Later, Hall interviewed Harper for the show—a fact that only some reporters on the tour found amusing, given that media organizations are paying a princely sum to be on the plane, and only a handful of media outlets on tour have been granted one-on-ones.

“She’s meeting the prime minister in his hotel room right now for a proper interview, and I’m sure his wife is there,” senior party source said slyly.

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