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The Mulcair NDP was not annoyingly pious. It was capable of taking (and sticking to) what looked to be a unpopular stand on treacherous issues — the terrorism legislation, C-51, provided a fine dividend for Mulcair and his party. And best of all, as the ceaseless rain of polls confirmed, he had lifted the NDP from its perennial third-place slot in the public’s esteem — always seven to 10 points behind — to a full equivalence with the Liberals and Conservatives. Not even former NDP leader Jack Layton had ever reached that plateau.

When this marathon campaign began, all looked so bright that Mulcair looked just a little too easy with his progress

Some of his success, as is the way with political fortune, came from events he did not author. Alberta Premier Rachel Notley’s socialist earthquake, her devastation of the dynastic Tories in that radically blue province, sent out national vibrations. It offered minds unaccustomed to, or even fearful of contemplating, the idea of a federal NDP government, a portal of plausibility to that otherwise unthinkable prospect. Notley’s win, the scale and timing of it, looked like it might be overture and omen for the party’s national fortunes.

All was going well. And perhaps that was a problem. It is the wisdom of fishermen that “a smooth sea never made a skillful sailor.” When this marathon campaign began, all looked so bright that Mulcair looked just a little too easy with his progress. In the long ago Maclean’s debate (when the first wagon trains made it to California), he seemed not fully present, not fully energized, which suggested a leader a little too confident, not sufficiently alert that there was still much persuading to be done. He also seemed to think, or perhaps more fairly gave the impression, that the “problem” of Justin Trudeau had been taken care of. He either was not capable of, or thought it not necessary, to fully dispatch Trudeau then.