Quote:Justin Trudeau, the Toronto Star’s Bob Hepburn opined Saturday, is showing signs of “turning a corner and becoming the formidable campaign force the Liberals hoped he would be and that Conservatives and NDP strategists feared all along.

Well, then. It’s curious Hepburn thought that enough to write it, and did not re-write it immediately after reading it. I can’t think of another independent political observer in the known universe who would agree with him, just now – including respondents to the most recent EKOS poll, released Friday, which has the Trudeau-led Grits plunging to just over 23.3 per cent in national public support, almost four points back of Stephen Harper’s Tories, and more than ten behind Thomas Mulcair’s surging New Democrats

A Nanos survey published the same day in the Globe contained similarly good news for Team Orange and grim tidings for the Liberals, with the NDP well ahead of the other two major parties – at 34 per cent compared to 27 and 26 per cent for the Grits and Conservatives, respectively – on the question of who is most trusted to help Canadian families. The evidence is increasingly plain that Mulcair is in the grip of a tailwind, and Trudeau the reverse.