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Political predictions are generally lucky or wrong. Anyone handicapping the 2015 Canadian election six months out might have given short odds on the Conservatives, who were eight points clear of the Liberals and 12 ahead of the NDP at the end of April. But those poll numbers masked deep unhappiness with the Harper government and a split in the progressive vote. In the event, of course, the Conservatives fell seven points behind the Liberals on election day.

All that is by way of a caveat. Campaign veterans will tell you not much that happens six months before a general election has a material impact on the result — not even the Liberal Party’s formation of a circular firing squad in the SNC-Lavalin saga.

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But the governing party is in all kinds of disarray and if they have not gone over the cliff, they can certainly see the edge from where they are now.

The departure of Gerald Butts has robbed Justin Trudeau of his most trusted political confidante, senior policy advisor and chief electoral strategist. Trudeau’s chief of staff, Katie Telford, performed the role of campaign director in the last election and the assumption was she would do so again. In 2015, Stephen Harper’s deputy chief of staff, Jenni Byrne, moved from the Prime Minister’s Office to the party organization to co-ordinate the campaign. Ideally Telford would do the same but she, and others in the Prime Minister’s Office who would be involved in messaging, nominations, the leader’s tour and other campaign activities, are busy running the country.