Students of sun Tzu and the Art of War know that wise generals don’t fight battles until they know they are already won. This is why a federal election this autumn is unlikely.

Just the same, we will be witnessing an interesting campaign, or perhaps what should be called a “pre-campaign.”

Thanks to an 11-point erosion in the polls between Canada Day and Labour Day because of the census fiasco, the Tories have some serious fence-mending to do. They have started to recover in the polls, but a full recovery is unlikely in time for an autumn election.

The Liberals, on the other hand, may have had a good summer, but some key planks in their platform — such as their economic policies — need clarifying and some road-testing.

Indeed, with the two major parties near deadlock, we are likely to see a lot of market-testing by both sides — but mostly by the Conservatives.

This is because there is more at stake than just which party will form the next government. The next election is likely to decide how political campaigning will be conducted in this country for many years to come.

This is because the Conservatives have been using a U.S.-style campaign technique known as “narrowcasting.”

Essentially, the strategy is as follows: hold your core vote at all costs and then, with some help from your strongest supporters, appeal to enough swing voters to form a winning plurality.

In practical terms, the Tories can count on a core vote of about 30% of decided voters. All they need is 5%-6% of the 20% in the “swing” category to vote Conservative and the party can form a government.

In contrast, the Liberals are sticking with the Big Red Tent approach. In other words: stay as close as possible to the centre and appeal to as many people as possible, and make sure there is something inside the tent for them.

Following this strategy is how the Liberals have been Canada’s “natural governing party” for most of this country’s existence. When the Liberals are strong, the New Democratic Party becomes a parking lot for Grit votes.

But things changed with the emergence of the Bloc Québécois — as long as that party can count on its province to be its personal voting fortress, a majority federal government will be a long shot.

So, the Tory core vote is all the more important. This is why the Conservatives will quickly give in on initiatives that offend their core vote — such as rewording the national anthem or offering financial support for a hockey arena in Quebec City — while holding firm on positions that don’t upset the core, such as the long-form census.

The Tories are also road-testing another tactic — painting the Opposition parties as some sort of illegitimate coalition of Liberals, socialists and separatists. This tactic is risky and could backfire.

The Globe and Mail dismissed the idea of such a coalition as fantasy. In Quebec, La Presse raised the question of whether federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is an idiot after giving a highly partisan speech that was supposed to be about the economy at the Canadian Club in Ottawa.

With a straight face, Flaherty urged all Canadians to rise above petty politics. Then, he used the rest of that speech to launch a diatribe against the evil coalition, which, he said, would destroy the economy.

Not surprising, Flaherty has earned wide criticism for that performance. A few people at the staid Canadian Club even walked out.

The Conservatives may have been running the country since February 2006, but they still operate and think like an Opposition party. This is why they are careful to stick with only a few tangible policy initiatives that they believe will resonate with their core voters — such as building prisons in spite of a declining crime rate or buying stealth fighter jets — while issues such as health care and climate change are left alone.

Even something as important to the national economy as the Alberta oilsands won’t pull this Tory government off its tightly scripted tactics. Alberta’s provincial government has been left on its own — at least, publicly — to defend the oilsands while its federal counterpart has been mostly silent.

There has been a price to pay for this approach, however. There are holes in the Conservative demographic. Women are less likely to vote Tory; and the more educated you are, the more likely you are to vote for another political party.

This is probably why the Tories have been going after the immigrant vote.

Among the things pollsters ask decided voters is which party would be their second choice. This gives the pollsters an indication of the results in the coming months. The “Tory second choice” poll has been flat at 10% for months, indicating the party’s core — as steady as it might be — is not growing.

Behaving like an Opposition party served the Tories well in the 2008 election, mainly because almost 800,000 Liberal voters stayed home.

But, as pollster Nik Nanos notes, the question remains whether the Conservatives will be able to campaign like an Opposition party in the next election. IE