If Justin Trudeau manages to pull off a victory on Oct. 21, he will have some major IOUs piled up with his candidates and Liberal troops on the ground. This is a sea change for Liberals, with far-reaching implications for Trudeau and his party. Four years after Trudeau carried Liberals to victory on the shoulders of his own mass popularity, his party is in the midst of a very different campaign — one in which the candidates are out on the ground, making the case for a leader who is far less beloved than he was in 2015. No matter what happens on election day, that is going to rattle the leader-centric dynamics of Trudeau’s Liberal party — and ultimately, perhaps, the Prime Minister’s Office, if that’s where he lands again after this campaign.Over two days in Toronto this week, going door to door with Liberals in a city known as a stronghold for the party, it was clear that a number of voters, even loyal partisans, want some reassurances about the man who has been prime minister since 2015. The starry celebrity of four years ago has been brought down to earth and is now a battle-scarred politician like all others.“You’ve got your work cut out for you here,” a young man says when he steps into a Toronto condominium elevator and notices a small team of campaigners holding pamphlets for Chrystia Freeland, who has been serving as foreign affairs minister and MP for University-Rosedale in Trudeau’s government. By way of explanation, the man mimes the act of rubbing his face with black paint and laughs as he exits the elevator. The Freeland campaign team doesn’t join in the laughter. While they don’t find a lot of people home in the 12-storey building over the lunch hour, they do get a number of residents saying “I don’t know” and “still deciding” when asked whether they’re voting for the Liberals. Trudeau’s name and face are far less visible — even non-exis ...
|