Whatever one thinks of his politics and policies, only the most hidebound of Liberal, NDP, and Bloc partisans would deny that Steven Harper has enjoyed a pretty successful first half-year or so in office, surprising many, including, I would guess, a fair few of those who voted for him.

As prime minister, Harper has proved anything but "scary," except to perhaps a parliamentary press gallery, and no one else paid much mind to their hissy fit over Harper's imposing more structured and controlled media access to himself and his cabinet.

Earlier this year, Harper accused the press gallery of wanting to be the "opposition to the government," so, "They don't ask questions at my press conferences now ... We'll just take the message out on the road. There's lots of media who do want to ask questions and hear what the government is doing for Canadians, or to Canadians. So we'll get our message out however we can."

I completely understand Harper's disaffection for the media, to which he owes no favours, although it remains to be seen whether picking fights with them is a smart strategy. So far, it doesn't seem to have hurt him. However, Harper is finding ways to bypass "old media" and take his message directly to the people, especially younger, tech-savvy voters he needs to win over in order to expand his base of support.

Last week, Sun Media's Jorge Barrera reported that Harper speeches top the list of most-downloaded podcasts at Apple Computer's Canadian online iTunes music store, where every one since the April 4 speech from the throne can be downloaded for free. The speeches are available on the Conservative Party's website, but Barrera notes that "putting them on iTunes has given them much wider exposure and triggered a slight tremor through cyberspace."

For the uninitiated, "podcasts" are simply audio files in the popular MP3 digital format that can be downloaded and played back on a computer or MP3 players. The Prime Minister's Office records all of Harper's speeches and simply uploads a copy to iTunes.

"We recognize the fact that the media environment is changing and we want to find ways to communicate directly with Canadians," commented a PMO official.

There's reason to anticipate that Harper's second six months in office will probably be smooth sailing as well. Leaderless, and with the calumnious "Harper is scary" card now removed from their campaign hand, the Liberals will no doubt huff and puff from time to time, but the last thing they want in the short term is an election, and without them, neither of the other opposition parties has the parliamentary muscle to bring Harper's Tories down. Consequently, even with his relatively weak minority caucus of 125, Harper will have the luxury of governing pretty much as if he had a majority well into 2007.

Another reason the Liberals will shy away from any early election brinksmanship is that Harper might well win a majority if a vote were held today. His Western home base is happy, he's showing remarkable newfound strength in Atlantic Canada, and would likely pick up seats in Ontario as well.

Quebec, as usual, remains the imponderable. Will Harper prove able to build on the 10-seat beachhead he established there in January?

It hasn't been 100 per cent cruise mode for Harper.I understand and agree with the reasoning behind the Tories terminating the practice of lowering the Peace Tower flag to half-mast every time a Canadian soldier is killed in Afghanistan (or elsewhere), but it was politically ill-considered, as was the decision to ban media access to repatriation of fallen soldiers' bodies.

The latter has now been superseded by a sensible policy leaving it up to the decedent's family as to whether media should be admitted, which shows that Harper can be flexible, but it was a dumb blunder making it an issue in the first place.

However, at least in his the first five-plus months as PM, blunders have been few and far between.