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In the last election, reporters were unlikely to waste the few questions the prime minister so parsimoniously allowed them to ask whether, if re-elected, he would serve a full term.

Having been in office just five years, Stephen Harper was not about to walk away from the job if he won.

But if he does choose to run again in 2015 — and he still has plenty of time to decide otherwise — he will be pelted with questions about his retirement plans until he gives an unequivocal answer.

At some point during the last few weeks, with the party riding at its lowest-ever in the polls under his leadership, the explosion of the Duffy-Wright affair and the resignation of one of his MPs, the switch flicked.

The question for journalists is no longer whether Harper will be defeated, but when he will go. And when he goes, will it be by his own volition, in an election, or at the hands of his own party?

Inside the Conservative party, this transition will be marked by a thousand inflection points, many of which will be hidden from outsiders. That’s when a cabinet minister, a backbench MP, or a party organizer chooses to step forward or step back, depending on how he or she weights the current pressures from Harper against the hopes and fears of a future life under another leader.

The recent restiveness of the caucus is a measure not only of the brittleness of Harper’s strict party discipline, but also of MPs’ recognition he will not be where he is forever.

Already, and for some time now, Jim Flaherty has been showing some uncharacteristic independence (for this government, anyway) about his own political future.

In a well-observed piece in the Toronto Star last week, Tim Harper pointed out that while cabinet stalwarts (and possible leadership contenders) John Baird and James Moore have mouthed the PMO talking points on the Senate imbroglio, Jason Kenney had been uncharacteristically silent.

Whether or not leadership politics is behind this, the point is that others in the party and the media are watching and making inferences.

At this point in Harper’s career, the power has begun slipping away — perhaps inexorably.

At the Conservatives’ convention later this month in Calgary, presumptive leadership candidates will be preening with as much unsubtlety as they think they can get away with. The long-form newspaper profiles will not be far behind.

Harper is expected to shuffle his cabinet soon after that. As he does so, he will be aware that who he puts where will crucially affect the shape of a future leadership race. Every leadership contender he puts in a high-profile portfolio will make Harper’s own departure seem more plausible. If instead he squelches the ambitions of possible successors it will not only weaken his cabinet, it will be public testimony to his defensiveness.

At this point in Harper’s career, the power has begun slipping away — perhaps inexorably.

There is no single pattern to the way these things work themselves out. Margaret Thatcher — who, like Harper, resurrected her party — seemed indomitable until, after 11 years as prime minister, she was suddenly and brutally disposed of in a caucus revolt that occurred while she was away at an EU summit. In Canada, though, MPs have no similar mechanism to get rid of a prime minister.

In 1967, Lester Pearson decided on his own to go, but no sooner did he make the announcement than he lost control. There were so many ministers out on the trail campaigning for his job that the Liberals were defeated in a critical vote in the House of Commons and were almost propelled into an election before they could choose his successor.

Tony Blair and Jean Chrétien each had ambitious rivals as finance ministers from the day their first cabinets were formed. In both cases, strange as it may seem, the pretenders — Gordon Brown in the UK and Paul Martin here — thought they had a deal that the prime minister would gracefully exit after two terms, and give them the keys to the corner office.

Blair and Chrétien both defiantly fought on and won a third time, but found themselves wounded and weakened even as they tried to chose the timing of their own departures.

The most obvious route for Harper now, if he does decide to fight another election, is to find some great political project — as Brian Mulroney did in his troubled first term in the form of free trade — and use it to turn the page, drive off internal and external rivals, and regain command.

Expect that too.

But great policy debates are by their nature complex and difficult for reporters to explain. Those of us who covered free trade — or Meech Lake for that matter — can tell you that the broad public only becomes engaged at the final decision point when they suddenly scramble for information.

A leadership race, on the other hand, can be understood like a hockey game: a competition that can generate excitement, even if the understanding of some spectators is not that great. In the media, politics usually trumps policy.

So ready or not, Stephen Harper — here it comes.

Follow Paul Adams on Twitter @padams29

Paul Adams is a veteran of the CBC, the Globe and Mail and EKOS Research. He has taught political science at the University of Manitoba and journalism at Carleton, where he is an associate professor. His new book Power Trap, on the dilemma of Canada’s opposition parties, was published in September.

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