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So, what shape are they in, really, six months from election time?

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And it is. It makes a quite ideal launch pad for the coming election if you are an opposition party.

Which is why it is so curious that the topic of a potential, post-election coalition — many months before the election itself — should be so eminently in the headlines. Why place in the foreground the impression that a coalition will be likely, necessary or desirable after the fall vote? For what other conclusions does this talk of a coalition lead to — other than, despite the Harper Conservatives’ fortunes and image being, arguably, at their very lowest during their time in office, both opposition parties still lack confidence that they will simply defeat them.

Coalition talk began with Trudeau’s very off-key response on Tuesday past to a perfectly obvious and legitimate question from the Canadian Press on the subject. He said he would “be more open to a coalition if Tom Mulcair were not leader of the NDP.” That is, of course, sheer fantasy because, as I think is common knowledge, Mulcair is[ the leader of the NDP, and has quite manfully been very clear on that point for quite a while. Being himself, he is nobody else.

I cannot imagine the intent of that musing was to suggest to the New Democrats, primarily out of consideration to Trudeau’s sensibility on the subject, that they should ditch their leader. Generally speaking, political parties like the leaders they choose themselves and only rarely farm out to their political enemies what the corporate lads call executive search.