Mr. Charest began strongly enough. The federal Conservative wunderkind was parachuted into the Quebec Liberal party last spring, largely on the strength of his sunny personality and allegedly winning ways. Who knew that he planned a revolution? Yet within a week he had set aside a generation of Quebec Liberal dogma on the Constitution, promising, in effect, to end the obsession with constitutional change that had so stunted Quebec's growth and deformed Quebec's politics.

Then, shortly before the election, he stunned everyone with an economic platform that promised to put a stop to more than 30 years of heavy-handed state intervention, the incestuous links between government and business that across Asia is now derided as crony capitalism but in la belle province is still called, without apparent irony, "the Quebec model." Revolutions are not so lightly won. It might have been better for Mr. Charest had he spent the last six months preparing voters for such an abrupt shift in course. It might have been better still if, having unveiled his economic program, he had not immediately abandoned it. Instead, his campaign over time has been reduced to one note: No more referenda.

In his defence, he was only following the conventional wisdom. The promise to end constitutional uncertainty was thought to hold great appeal for referendum-weary Quebecers, while the economic platform was considered, as they say on Yes, Minister, "courageous." Yet the strange thing is it is not the platform that has proved his undoing.

In this election, Quebecers have shown themselves ready to support a candidate promising tax cuts, balanced budgets, and co-operation with the rest of Canada. Alas, that candidate is Lucien Bouchard.

But if Mr. Bouchard has been successful in stealing much of Mr. Charest's agenda, he has been more skillful yet on the constitutional plane. In a word, Mr. Bouchard has out- ambiguated him. By promising to hold a referendum only under "winning conditions," and, more audacious still, by announcing his support for a constitutional amendment entrenching the provinces' right to opt out of national social programs with compensation, Mr. Bouchard has positioned himself as the man who would keep Quebec's options open.

It turns out that all those Quebecers who told the pollsters they did not want a referendum were lying. Or at least, they weren't quite telling the truth. Of course they didn't want to have another referendum. But that didn't mean they wanted not to have one. And certainly they didn't expect to hear a candidate promise, in terms that allowed no ambiguity, that he would never hold a referendum under any circumstances. For that would remove the source of Quebec's "leverage" over the rest of Canada, namely the threat of secession, a threat that two generations of Quebecers have been told they should employ to their advantage. Who told them that? We did: Canada, that is.

Opting out has been on the table since Lester Pearson, in the panicky days after the Quiet Revolution, first offered it up as a sop to Quebec nationalists. Since then, a procession of federal political leaders, by their endless readiness to make constitutional deals in the shadow of this or that secession crisis, have encouraged Quebecers in the belief that "the knife at the throat" brings results.

Where does this leave Mr. Charest? In a pickle, that's where. A promise to stop talking about the Constitution may look sensible so long as there is no hope of change. But why put away the knife just now, when the rest of the country still seems so willing to beg for its life? The prime minister may issue the odd tough-sounding interview, in which he suggests his own readiness to make concessions may not be infinite. But the shrieks of alarm even this inspires across the land tell Quebecers all they need to know.

That's why Mr. Charest is in such trouble. It isn't the impossibility of constitutional change that has sunk him. It's the possibility of it.