It would have seemed impossible as recently as the Christmas break of the just-ended 41st Parliament, but the Harper Conservatives are today jostling with the Liberals for second place. After nearly a decade of dominance, Stephen Harper is suddenly facing the fight of his political life. A series of unforced errors — misspelling your own leader’s title in a campaign tweet(!) — reflect a team looking somewhat rattled by the toughest electoral contest of their careers.

The first debate highlighted Harper’s challenge. He no doubt satisfied his base with his tall tales on the economy and terror. It seems unlikely that any new fans were converted by his underwhelming defence of his record.

His strategists have the most complex challenge of any of the three national parties. First they have to defend their hard-edged record with voters who have tolerated their more brutal style of politics and governing for a decade. Canadians have never endorsed this political style before. The weakness of the alternative was no doubt a factor in their success. Not so today. All three opposition leaders did better in the debate in nailing Harper than any previous group.

In this campaign, however, the Tories carry serious additional baggage — their record. A new load arrives on Tuesday with the reopening of the Mike Duffy trial.

Their strategic focus was to have been “tough on terror” coupled with “best at economic management.” The fear factor gets more wobbly daily. Their record on defence is increasingly challenged by clangers in defence procurement, angry vets and reports of the largely ineffectual Canadian contribution to the battle with ISIS.

More seriously, the economy has begun to sag. Seven years after his return to power was threatened by a collapsing global economy, Stephen Harper must think this a cruel irony. Having weathered that storm, his legacy is again imperilled by an economic downturn over which he has no control, though he will take much of the blame.

His learning curve on what is required of political leaders in uncertain times is remarkably flat. In 2008, he said, with astonishingly bad judgment that the crash created “some great buying opportunities ...” Doubling down, he added there were “gains to be made in the stock market.”

This time, under pressure from Mulcair in the debate, Harper mostly remained in happy denial. Then he stumbled and came dangerously close to admitting that he was presiding over Canada’s second recession.

Campaigns facing dramatic change require nimble campaign directors to select and then execute a new path to victory. Many of the brightest stars of the original Team Harper are gone — most painfully, the untimely passing of Doug Finley. Although he was ill by the time of the 2011 election, it was his strategy and gravitas that infused that victory. His understudy, the frequently explosive Jenni Byrne, has never managed a national campaign alone. This one promises to be a severe test of her ability to manage calmly under fire.

The Tories depend on their demonstrated ability to execute tactics and campaign logistics flawlessly. Their ability to slice the political salami more finely, carefully tweaking message, messenger and delivery vehicle precisely, has kept them alive. This time, however, they face better-armed opponents, and an electorate perhaps less responsive to the politics of fear and more open to change than ever before.

Many long focus group nights, followed by dozens of hours of painstaking analysis, will be underway at Tory campaign central these days. They will be searching for new packaging, perhaps even new messages, to get them through their extravagantly long election campaign. This is a challenge on top of supporting their claim that an aging government should be given a nearly unprecedented fourth term.

They are working under gathering clouds: the likelihood of more poor economic numbers and the reopening of the Duffy trial. Duffy’s defence team, having already run circles around the prosecution, is preparing to deliver their coup de grace. Many speculate that it will involve damaging testimony by Nigel Wright. But only the Tories know what other nasty surprises remain hidden in the hundreds of hours of interviews and thousands of emails.

Then there is the strategist’s nightmare: an “event”! A powerful new economic shock, a battlefield error that costs Canadian lives, or a bungled response to a security threat. This is what American strategists call an “an October surprise,” the sudden crisis, staged or genuine, that totally disrupts a campaign in its crucial closing days.

If “events” do disrupt their strategic game plan, we shall see whether the Harper team has the skill to execute a volte face, like Pierre Trudeau’s on the 1974 oil price spiral, or Brian Mulroney on free trade.

This would reveal surprising strategic flexibility by a team famous for sticking religiously to its game plan no matter what. Harper’s debate performance underlined that his team remains committed to the same story they offered in 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2011.

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It may be getting old.

Robin V. Sears, a principal at Earnscliffe and a Broadbent Institute leadership fellow, was an NDP party strategist for 20 years.

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