Summer’s over, so pay attention again

Trudeau grew while Mulcair dithered and Harper stalled

Nobody pays any attention to politics in the summer. Nothing that happened in the last two months will matter at the next federal election, two years hence, nor are the parties’ present standings in the polls precursors of anything.

Yes, indeed. Unless, of course, people have been paying attention, enough to form lasting impressions of the parties and their leaders that will shape how they vote on election day.

It is even possible for both interpretations to hold at the same time. All sorts of events could intervene between now and the next election that would make hash of current trends. But these are inherently unknowable. The best guess at where we’re going is where we’re at.

Where are we, then? About where we were at the beginning of the summer, if you look at the polls, with the Liberals several points in front of the Tories, the NDP several points behind. But that does not mean nothing has happened in the meantime.

The Liberals continued to draft in the jet stream of their leader, Justin Trudeau, who demonstrated at several points his effortless ability to command the media’s attention, as few opposition leaders can. Yes, in part this is mere celebrity fascination — dynastic politics at its shallowest — but in part it is owing to the personal qualities that a life in the public eye seem to have instilled in Trudeau.

Trudeau is unusually given to speaking his mind, in a way that other politicians shrink from — and that often gets him into trouble. Sometimes these look a lot like gaffes: offhand remarks, to which he appears to have given little thought. At other times they are clearly planned, as in his unequivocal denunciation of the Quebec “values” charter.

But what the public seems to be taking away from these episodes is that he is unafraid: unafraid to be candid with them, unafraid to let people see who he is. Polls show him leading his rivals in the “trust” category, an advantage that would seem only to have been strengthened by his late summer admission that he smoked marijuana as an MP.

On a practical level, it puts his personal misconduct (and hypocrisy, having voted for continued criminalization of the same substance) on the public record, well ahead of the election, much as he has been booking other potential electoral liabilities: though this, too, will inform people’s impressions of him, it will be in something close to proportion, rather than in the hysteria of mid-campaign.

But more broadly, it confirms his reputation for candour. Are people going to vote for him for that reason? No — any more than (most) people are likely to vote for him because of his stance on marijuana legalization. Of far greater importance, certainly, will be his positions on meat-and-potato issues like the economy. But will people be more inclined to listen to what he has to say then, and to believe his promises, because of the trust he is building now? Quite possibly.

What a contrast has been the performance of Tom Mulcair as leader of the NDP. Both face the burden, as opposition leaders, of resolving doubts about themselves and their parties: but where Trudeau is unguarded and transparent, Mulcair has been cautious, often to the point of inertia.

Rather than tell us what he would do — abolishing the Senate to one side — Mulcair seems more concerned with telling us what he would not do: not raise taxes, not legalize pot, and so forth. Where Trudeau was forthright in denouncing the Quebec charter, Mulcair has said little. On the other hand, his response to the Lac Megantic disaster was so over the top that it attracted criticism that might otherwise have been directed at the government.

Substantively, Mulcair has it all over his younger rival, with all of the experience and accomplishments Trudeau lacks. And yet it would be hard to say he was the better politician. There is an offkey quality to his performance — a tinniness of tone, a boastful insecurity, a sense of tightly wound resentment — of a kind the public is very good at detecting. That, too, may be starting to bake itself into perceptions of him, in a way that will be progressively harder to overcome.

That leaves the prime minister. After seven years in office, Stephen Harper is very much a known quantity to Canadians, and for good or ill seems disinclined to change.

If the summer was supposed to be a chance for a midterm reset, a relaxation of the abrasive, hyper-partisan style for which his government is notorious, he gives no sign of having taken it. The cabinet shuffle changed little, other than to promote the most loyal talking point reciters. Personnel changes in the Prime Minister’s Office reinforce the impression of a palace guard being drawn ever closer into itself.

And yet the prime minister cannot be unaware of the danger signs. The Senate scandals, while not yet fatal, have done much harm to the Conservative brand. The government seems stalled, along with most of its major initiatives — European free trade, pipelines, Senate reform — a sense of drift, which prorogation, and the passage of four months without meeting Parliament, hardly dispel. The lack of direction is giving rise to an increasingly restive party rank and file.

How much any of this will matter two years from now, no one can say. But the intermission is over. We are into the second half. From now on the game gets serious.