Tom Mulcair's campaign comes down to final, emotional appeals

Tom Mulcair is delivering the two most important speeches of his political life Sunday, striving in the dying hours of the 78-day campaign to inspire supporters and the undecided alike to rally behind the party.

Never have the stakes been higher, never has Mulcair's responsibility for the fortunes of so many other staffers and candidates been greater.

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And the NDP leader is said by staff to understand the weight of the moment, and the significance of the speeches he is delivering Sunday in both Toronto and Montreal.

NDP campaign insiders say the party's fortunes are almost unknowable at the moment, with so much riding on how the fractured vote will settle, and differently so, in regions across the country.

The national numbers that put Mulcair in third place are obviously poorer than the campaign team had hoped. There is the serious potential for the NDP to return a poorer result than its best-ever, 103-seat performance in 2011.

But there is also possibility.

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The story of Dan Gagnier has visibly energized both Mulcair and his team. The Liberal campaign co-chair was forced to resign after he advised TransCanada Corp., for whom he worked, on how best to lobby a new government. He did so while helping to run the Liberal campaign.

The NDP team has seized on the story, portraying it as corruption and scandal.

"Gagnier has given us an opportunity to remind people of what they disliked about the Libs when they threw them out last time," an NDP campaign staffer said.

And it's had an effect. The issue is beginning to show up in party polling and the so-called "verbatims," the write-in section of online surveys the party uses to gather data about the electorate.

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All these are the burdens Mulcair must shoulder as he steps on stage today, just as he did in Vancouver yesterday and Edmonton before that.

The party's three-day sprint to the election day finish line began Friday night in Edmonton before a 1,000-person crowd. The speech there was still political.

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NDP leader Tom Mulcair refers to former Liberal campaign co-chair Dan Gagnier.

In Vancouver though, the crowd grew by thousands, and the message started to shift to the emotional.

NDP campaign leaders say the goal is to have an almost spiritual connection with voters. They want to capture their imaginations and lock in support for their leader.

"It's emotional. It's an appeal," one senior staffer said. "People need to be reminded of his values."

Those values are middle-class values, according to the NDP's telling of the tale of Tom Mulcair.

The leader has been telling the story of his family — he's the second eldest of ten kids, you may have heard — for months.

Mulcair will return to that story again today, as he did Saturday in Vancouver.

Middle-class Mulcair

"I don't just talk about the middle class, I am from the middle class," he said.

The message is powerful because of its two meanings: that Mulcair is from the middle class, that Justin Trudeau is not.

"We had to work for everything we had," Mulcair said. "It wasn't easy. We worked hard, played by the rules and lived within our means. We learned the importance of looking out for one another, of sticking together, of backing up your principles with action."

"These are the values that guide me as a husband, as a father and as a grandfather. These values have guided my 35 years of public service — including as a cabinet minister. 

"These are the values that will guide me as your next prime minister."

Mulcair's first stab at this final effort was well-received in Vancouver.

Mulcair and the crowd fed off each other and the NDP speech-writing team is hoping to capitalize on that again, today.

The stump now features a contrived call and response between the leader and his audience, the crowd having been encouraged before the lights go down to repeat Mulcair's line "we're not going back," as a chant.

It was not perfectly smooth in Vancouver, an indication of the lack of practice Mulcair has with this form of political communication.

"He's never done a speech like this before," a party source said, in front of so many people with so much on the line.

"He's got to be inspirational."

'Awesome'

The size of the crowd will help with this. As will the room, the lighting, the mood.

Mulcair has a sign that reveals whether the fire in his belly has been sufficiently stoked. It's a giggle, as Mulcair takes the stage and fully realizes the size of the crowd and samples their energy.

It can't be faked or scripted, one staffer said.

Mulcair either feels it, as he did in Vancouver, or he doesn't. It all depends on the crowd.

Sunday, as Muclair spoke, his principal political adviser stood beside Brad Lavigne, one of the party's most senior campaign strategists.

The two men were smiling broadly as they watched Mulcair deliver his speech.

Once it was all over, Lavigne tilted his head to the side as if to consider something.

Then his lips opened into a smile and he spoke one word.

"Awesome."