There’s one scene that I keep going back to these days. It takes place in Ottawa almost exactly six years ago. It’s the federal Liberal leadership event, the one that made Justin Trudeau party leader.

Looking back now, you’d think it would have been a massive affair — the beginning of the rise of the man who would go on to be leader of a G7 nation, ignite Trudeaumania Part Deux and become a darling of the international scene.

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But it wasn’t. It wasn’t a grand gathering, like the must-watch 2006 Liberal leadership drama had been. They couldn’t muster enough guests or cash or both to book the glittering new Ottawa Convention Centre so instead they used a smaller ballroom across the street. And even then they failed to fill the room.

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It’s hard to accurately describe the mood of the event. Was it a celebration? Sure. But it was also something of an intervention. Like when the family firm awkwardly tells the prodigal son that it’s now time to put aside his misspent youth and instead put on the suit and enter the corner office to stumble his way up the corporate ladder past those more experienced but less connected.

It’s hard to blame the Liberals for it. Paul Martin was supposed to be a “juggernaut” — the phrase popularized by columnist Susan Delacourt — who could win super-majorities and govern forever. Then, he suddenly lost. What followed was a battle of the supposed gods — a leadership race where Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff were fawned over by press and party as lions of intellect and ability. But when neither failed to secure enough support, that sneaky Stephane Dion ran through the middle. A surprising coup, for sure. But Dion was, to put it mildly, an underwhelming leader and they lost badly in 2008. Then when Ignatieff finally ascended to the top perch to soar he sunk worse than Dion.

It was a tough time to be a Liberal. The party was on life support. None of the great strategists of the natural governing party could strategize their way out of this funk. But they knew they had a secret weapon. It was untried and untested, still fresh. “Do we bring it out now?” they surely debated.

“Break glass in case of emergency” was the general aura that surrounded Justin Trudeau ever since he was first elected as an MP in 2008. And boy did the Liberals feel they were facing an emergency. So they broke the glass.

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“Really?” was the one-word question I put to a former Liberal cabinet minister who stood in the ballroom watching the coronation that day. He just shrugged in response, then pointed to his father who had lived through the Pierre Trudeau years, who was applauding from the audience. “It’s the nostalgia. It’s the name recognition,” he said. Then we looked at the young people who were cheering like young people do (or at least used to do) when in the presence of Justin Trudeau.

Everyone darn well knew what was going on at the time. Justin Trudeau was their Hail Mary pass. The resume was slim and his performance as an MP was lousy. But they figured it was worth a shot. And it paid off.

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Typically, if the long shot succeeds then you’ve just won the game and everyone goes home and that’s that. Politics is not sports though. After you win in politics, you have to stay and govern.

Somehow they kept it all together for a while, to the credit of Gerald Butts or the more capable members of cabinet or sheer luck or even to Trudeau himself. And now it’s falling apart.

Lavscam. The Mark Norman trial. Kokanee grope. The India trip. Women turning their backs on him. First Nations feeling betrayed. The world stage beginning to laugh.

These aren’t just one day policy flubs that you can reverse or apologize for or easily make right again. These are broader issues about the rule of law and about character, issues of hypocrisy and posturing, issues of brand identity. Things that strike to the core of how the public view the man and his government.

That’s the big problem with that Hail Mary pass. It wasn’t a manoeuvre that concluded in 2013. It was an ongoing question of whether he could successfully do the job.

The voters will soon be asked to consider that question again.