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Wow. This is a man who carved out his early reputation as a winner by out-working and out-enduring his opponents, whether in nomination fights or in the boxing ring. He ran stairs in secret, training double time for the charity boxing match against Patrick Brazeau that would make him a contender for national leadership in the popular imagination. His youth and energy set him apart from his opponents, both of whom are from an older generation. Now he’s a adopting a lower public profile, in high summer, months before the election, lest he tucker himself out. And this is deemed a good thing?

Nothing is settled, to state the obvious. Everything can turn on a word or a moment in a single televised debate. And Trudeau possesses something of considerable political value that neither of his opponents can boast, to the same degree, which is an ability to easily straddle the centre. His core strategy, which held until the wobbling last fall in the debate over the ISIS mission, was to cut left on social policy and right on economics and security. Should he move back to that this summer, make a few cogent, toughly worded speeches and beat down the media mob in a couple of decent, lengthy scrums, he may yet turn his fortunes around.

It’s also inevitable, as others have noted, that Mulcair’s new halo will soon earn him a beating at the hands of the Conservatives’ ad machine, not to mention the Liberals’. Being suddenly the golden boy is no boon when it occurs this early in the cycle, providing opponents time to counterattack. Also, there’s this: It has been assumed, because of Mulcair’s vaunted surgical skill in Question Period, that he will make mincemeat of Trudeau and even, to an extent, Harper, in the TV/Web debates. Maybe. But the only one of the three who has done this before, as leader of a major party in a national campaign, is Stephen Harper.