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In the minds of normal people, August and politics have much the same association as, in the sad quip of early feminism, fish and bicycles.

The main elements of any campaign have also been with us already. The Senate scandals represented the real burst from the starting blocks. The sad events in Ottawa last October 22, with the murder of Cpl. Nathan Cirillo as he guarded the National War Memorial, added a grim contour to the contest. The campaign has been on since Justin Trudeau assumed the mantle of his father as leader of the Liberals. It’s been on since Bill C-51. And, most tellingly, it has been on for the NDP — ever so quietly, ever so intrusively — and as it now seems to appear, ever so effectively, since Thomas Mulcair took full stewardship of the New Democrats. And emphatically on for the NDP since Rachel Notley’s full rout of the Prentice PCs in Alberta.

It’s about Harper. It is an election about whether Harper should stay or go as prime minister.

Further, the central question of the campaign has also already been established: it’s about Harper. It is an election about whether Harper should stay or go as prime minister. Both his style and his major policies are the very core of the race. Those who see him as a frigid, controlling, fear-mongering, anti-democratic leader are vibrating with the desire to see him go. Those who, to the contrary, see him as a reserved, competent, stable leader in an anxious economic time, as a stalwart in a time unsettled by acts of terror, will want to see him stay.

For the former the only question of this campaign is which of the two opposition leaders is more likely to beat him. Is it Mulcair or Trudeau? Which of the two can most plausibly claim to channel the anti-Harper sentiment? Both opposition parties have been making the case for their respective leaders for a long time. The consideration that, come Sunday or Monday, they will be officially making the case will not alter the dynamic a whit.