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Prentice has been out of elected politics since 2010 and perhaps didn’t appreciate how dangerous it is to reveal an opinion before it has been road-tested to the point of exhaustion. Although there are good reasons to support term limits, the blowback has been so fast and furious that he is already adding caveats.

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Gaffes, bizarre promises, and even a possible police investigation are finally beginning to draw some attention away from the poisoned legacy of the beleaguered former premier.

So far, former federal cabinet minister Jim Prentice appears to have maintained the lead in a race that seems crafted specifically to avoid both outright flubs and the public’s interest. But that strategy may have backfired; enthusiasm for the campaign appears to be so marginal that some pollsters have warned that one of the two other candidates may be able to swoop in for the prize.

“The numbers are going to be way down, and like in a general election, numbers that are way down makes prediction much more difficult,” said Bruce Cameron, president of Return on Insight, a local polling firm. “A campaign that’s able to target a specific interest group or ethnic or cultural group … can change the results.”

The premier is decided by party members alone, making the coming leadership race far more significant in some ways than a general election. The province has now been under Progressive Conservative rule for 43 years, making it the longest-running government in Canadian history. The premier, the party and the policies of the province have, thus, always been decided at the party level.