It seems that the Khan crossing won’t turn into a major new story like Emerson’s defection or Belinda’s new hair colour. And given the low profile of the man involved and the lack of sensationalism in the crossing, that’s not too surprising. As for my take:

1. To put it into perspective, a man who thought Joe Volpe was the best individual to lead the Liberal Party now feels that Stephen Harper is the best individual to lead the country. So this is not something Liberals need to lose a lot of sleep over.

2. My guess is that Khan’s riding will bounce back to the Liberals next election. In that respect, this isn’t terrible news for the Liberals since it opens up another winnable seat for them in Ontario to find a candidate for.

3. As for the numbers game, once again, it’s not as big a deal as people make it out to be. The Liberals would be best served to wait before bringing down this government so if this allows the NDP to save the Tories, I don’t think the Grits will lose much sleep over it. Stronach’s crossing proved to be a blessing in disguise for Harper since it gave him more time to prepare for the 2006 election and Dion could use more time to get the Liberals ready.

4. Dion made the right call by making Khan chose between the party and whatever title Harper dreamed up for him (“special adviser because Peter MacKay doesn’t know anything about the Middle East”). As much as we’d all like to see more bipartisanship (tripartisanship? quadpartisanship?) , having Khan as a special adviser to Harper just wasn’t practical.

5. The optics of this are certainly better than of Emerson or Stronach who jumped straight to Cabinet and, because of that, it certainly seems less opportunistic than either of those two moves. This is especially true when compared to the Emerson crossing which was undeniably about David getting his Cabinet spot.

So, all in all, this is by no means a seismic event and I suspect that by the end of 2007, we’ll have all forgotten about it.