paid a price with the sponsorship scandal. At some point the cord of trust with the voter is broken. Besides their alleged duplicity, the Conservatives may have erred in announcing planned changes to the Old Age Security system at such an early date. Given demographic and fiscal trends, the policy of advancing the age requirement for qualification is arguably -- depending on whose statistics one believes -- a wise and prescient one. But since the plan is not to start going into effect for about a decade, the wonder is why the Tories raised worries among the public at this very early stage, especially since the prime minister had not campaigned on OAS changes in the last election. The New Democrats have made their big move without adopting any strikingly new policies. They are no doubt profiting from the government's difficulties. There was one other period, the late 1980s, when they were even or slightly ahead of the governing party (which was then Brian Mulroney's Conservatives) in the polls. But in the 1988 election campaign, which was driven mainly by the free trade debate, they fell far back. The current poll jump is serving to quickly unify the party under Thomas Mulcair's leadership. The leadership convention was expected to produce divisions in the party which could linger. Traditionalists like Ed Broadbent warned against Mulcair's moving the party to the middle. No one is talking about that now. No one wants to argue with success. Party members are enthused that they