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It wasn’t a “turning point” or a “defining moment” (these exist mostly in journalists’ imaginations), but if there was an instant when Justin Trudeau — I don’t want to say won this, because there are still several days to go, the polls could be wrong etc., etc. — but if there was a moment when he avoided completely blowing himself up before he’d begun, it came during the first televised debate, in the campaign’s first week.

You remember? That was the debate where, in the immortal words of the Conservatives’ Kory Teneycke — as he attempted the difficult manoeuvre of raising expectations of how much Trudeau would have to exceed expectations in order to exceed expectations of how much he’d exceed expectations — the bar had been set so low for Trudeau he’d be hailed as a success if he “comes on stage with his pants on.”

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And for much of the debate he was, well, fully clothed: repeating the same rote talking points, talking over people, in the style that would become familiar through four subsequent debates. But eventually the subject turned to Quebec — Trudeau had used a question about democracy to work in a dig at the NDP’s Tom Mulcair for his opposition to the Clarity Act, and its requirement for a “clear majority” in any referendum on separation — and at that point Mulcair, who had been oddly low key until then, decided to pounce.