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The ancient cleavage of Canadian politics — Libs and Tories — held. What the insiders call “brand,” the deep identification of a product or a party — and deep is the key word — was their invisible though durable support through all their days lost wandering in the valley first spied by Stéphane Dion, but only fully explored and claimed by Michael Ignatieff. And when with the last throw of the leadership dice Justin Trudeau came on to fulfill his “destiny,” the brand found the product, the spark leaped the gap, and despite official third-party status, the real contest almost had to be Trudeau the buoyant versus Harper the imperial.

Style counts. It certainly counted with former prime minister Pierre Trudeau

Where was Mulcair to find his place in this drama? He was always the figure somewhere in the middle, when all the voltage was coming from the two antagonists at the poles. Harper and Trudeau was the real matchup, regardless of party standings. Mulcair could harvest the good opinion of the press corps for his lawyerly inquisitions in Question Period. He could be seen as the good steward taking the NDP out of its traditional and frankly boring embodiment as a vessel of self-determined righteousness and salvationist soft-sell socialism. All very credible achievements, but none of it the stuff of excitement and flair. None of it a matter of style.

Style counts. It certainly counted with former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, with whom the proverb, le style c’est l’homme même — the style is the man himself — found its most flamboyant incarnation. And, to a lesser degree, it perfectly accorded with his son. It is Justin Trudeau’s largest gift — his ability to summon crowds, siphon attention, draw headlines for the lightest occasions — as it was, almost inadvertently, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper’s gift to figure, to those who opposed him, as some wildly inflated figure of political villainy. Mulcair had neither Trudeau’s camera charisma, nor Harper’s dark dominance. He was once again the (neglected) man in the middle of others’ drama.