If, on the other hand, Mr. Harper wins -- still the more likely result -- all sorts of possibilities open up. Mr. Harper is among the ablest advocates conservatism has had in this country since the modern conservative movement was born, a generation ago. The Tories were always an uncomfortable fit, an accidental vehicle for an ideology the leadership never fully embraced, while Preston Manning, for all his intelligence, was better at analyzing a problem than at persuading others of his solution. Mr. Harper offers a rare treble: a sure grasp of policy, the ability to explain it and a willingness to stick with it under fire.

In specific terms, he draws on the best traditions of the Reform party, combining a solid grounding in market economics with a genuine commitment to democratic reform.

Notably, he presents the two as aspects of the same idea: Cleaning up Canadian politics begins by getting the corporations out of the public trough.

But Mr. Harper's leadership would also signal a couple of important turning points for the right. It would mean setting aside its ambivalence about the Charter of Rights, with which the libertarian Mr. Harper has no quarrel. And it would mean abandoning its 30-year flirtation with Quebec nationalists in favour of a direct appeal to the province's federalists, as outlined in his Montreal speech earlier in the campaign.

Indeed, for a candidate who began the race tagged as an extremist who would lead the party into the right-wing wilderness, Mr. Harper has cut a surprisingly centrist path -- witness the support he enjoys from party moderates such as Keith Martin and Ian McLelland -- on issues from abortion to taxes.

Of course, with his purist credentials already well-established, he had a little more room to manoeuvre than most. But his centrism also neatly underscores his position on the larger issue of whether and how far the party should co-operate with the Tories. The unspoken assumption behind the "unite-the-right" movement is that those are the only votes available. Harper's campaign is an explicit rejection of that premise. There are more votes to be found, he says, among the vast numbers of soft Liberals than the Joe Clark Tories, whose supporters now resemble something of a cult.

Still, for all his many strengths as a candidate, there is something callow, unfinished about him. His intellect is not in doubt. It's his judgment that must still be tested: a matter not only or even primarily of intelligence, but of temperament, and experience. Mr.

Harper's experience is limited almost exclusively to politics. Apart from a stint as president of the National Citizens' Coalition, he has never led or managed anything.

His political career, moreover, was marked by an escalating feud with Mr. Manning. The former Reform party leader was not exactly a "people person," but the bitterness of their falling out is unsettling. Politics, by its nature, involves a balancing of principle and pragmatism; Mr. Manning was better than most at reconciling the two. Does Mr. Harper have the same understanding of this requirement?

The same doubts are raised by Mr. Harper's choleric public response to the results of the last election, and the Alliance's failure to break through east of Manitoba. In an article for the National Post, and in an open letter (co-signed by five others) to the Premier of Alberta, Mr. Harper displayed an almost paranoid view of the country.

It was time, he wrote, for Albertans "to seek a new relationship with Canada." The two -- Canada is referred to throughout as if it were another country -- had "embarked on divergent and potentially hostile paths." The election had proved this, with the "rejection" of the Alliance by Ontario voters filled with "every prejudice about the West and every myth about Alberta." There was no option for Albertans but to "begin building another home," repatriating powers much as Quebec had done. These "firewalls," it was argued, would secure the province from attack by an "aggressive and hostile" federal government.

Mr. Harper has since tried to frame these fevered remarks as a mere academic essay on the division of powers, but it's clear they weren't. More constructively, he has balanced his defence of provincial rights with a vow to use the federal trade and commerce power to strike down interprovincial trade barriers. He will need to do more in this vein if he is to repair the damage.

Mr. Harper is clearly the class of this field, and the hope of Canadian conservatives.

Whether he has the vision to lead the country remains to be seen.