In a two-party fight, Tories need to do more than bash Trudeau

After 10 long weeks the funhouse federal election has finally come into focus. An unusually tight three-way race has simplified into a more familiar story: Liberal vs. Tory. Now that voters have whittled down their choices, will Ahab Harper finally be able to whale on his nemesis Trudeau and win the election?

Harper vs. Trudeau should be heaven for Conservatives, but the Tory leader is going to have to turn his so far somnolent campaign up to eleven. Or, to quote the philosopher Trudeau, now is the time for the Harper to “whip out” his campaign guns and show the Liberal leader how “big they are.” And not just the great Conservative ad cannons, which Trudeau has worked overtime to spike.

The Conservative line on Trudeau has been that he’s “just not ready.” It was a dandy attack, as long as Trudeau paid it lip service. And in the year before the election Justin was gaffing it up. Alas, the brash and rash “whip ’em outs” have been wiped out and, low bar or not, the young Liberal leader cleared the hurdles of the campaign trail.

He has certainly performed miles better than the more experienced Tom Mulcair, whose Liberal-in-Dipper-in-Liberal campaign clothing has been stripped off by the emperors of change, who appear to prefer the cut of Trudeau’s untested jib.

In trying desperately to be something it’s not, Mulcair’s NDP no longer knows which way is up. It’s a party whose power comes via Quebec and yet it is dangerously off-side with its base over the niqab. And its strident opposition to the recently concluded Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal will frighten away the moderates it’s been courting as much as it will reassure its traditional left-wing support.

With Team Orange seemingly crushed, what must the Conservatives do to make sure Liberal butterflies don’t generate a Trudeau tsunami?

Giving Trudeau more rope isn’t the answer; he’s proven he can hog-tie in this electoral rodeo. Barring a Dion-like late stage meltdown on national TV, the Trudeau gaffe window has closed.

The Tories have instead switched up their advertising in an attempt to make the Liberal platform a pocketbook issue. And for good reason. Recall that Jack Layton’s late election surge in 2011 was short-circuited when Conservatives alleged that his environmental policy would add 10 cents a litre at the gas pumps. People will tell a pollster just about anything, but many then go on to vote with their pocketbooks.

The ad buy will help check the Liberals to a degree, but Conservatives need to do more than frighten people through their TVs. They also need to help people remember why they like — OK, fine, respect — Stephen Harper.

Enter the TPP.

Sure, the super-mega-ultra-Pacific trade deal will eventually be a boon to the Canada economy; but if it’s to be of any immediate use to Harper in this election he needs to make it mean something for the average voter. That will be hard to do in a week or two.

Yes, Ed Fast did yeoman’s work cluttering up the nation’s Twitter feeds Tuesday, posting industry TPP endorsements hither and yon, but I’ll go out on a limb and venture that the endorsement of the Association of Seafood Processors is too shrimpy to move the average voter.

No, the campaign benefit of the Pacific trade deal is that it allows Harper to look prime ministerial and demonstrate deep knowledge about matters of state.

The Conservatives have played a lot of small ball during this campaign; closing it with an economic home run reminds voters that there’s a big picture plan to match the army of micro tax credits.

An ancillary benefit of trade is that it also goes over well in Quebec. This won’t, of course, mean an end to the niqab debate, but it does place something substantial behind the Conservative veil in Canada’s secondbiggest province, a territory that has traditionally been hostile to Harper.

Of course, that hostility extends elsewhere, too. But the Harper that Canadians saw on their television screens this week talking trade is the version of Harper that the greatest number of Canadians can put up with and vote for. It’s this Harper that will be on offer for the last week of this interminable campaign. It’s this Harper the Conservatives want to contrast with Justin Trudeau.

It’s fun to track the ebb and flow of political campaigns, but they all end with voters putting an “x” next to a name.

One of the questions voters ask themselves before marking their spot is whether the party leaders would make credible prime ministers.

Only one man holds that title now, and by landing this whale of a trade deal, Stephen Harper might just have done enough to spear Justin Trudeau.