put another way..

it's well known that, when forced with the choice, canada picks democrats over republicans by at least a 3-1 margin. there were polls around the iraq invasion that had george w. bush running under 5% in canada - even as he was running high in the polls in the united states.

the flip side of that that is much less realized is that americans are going to pick the conservatives over the liberals by similar margins. they just don't realize it, because they don't really know the parties. they know the words, but they don't realize how they apply, here. all kinds of people that identify as liberal democrats in the united states would very quickly become card-carrying conservatives as soon as they crossed the border and realized what was actually in front of them.