We see political campaigns most clearly with hindsight, and not even that is reliable.

Right now, the NDP, BC Liberals, and Greens are locked in battle for B.C.

Will one land a knockout blow? Worse, will one leader fumble?

One of the most famous political fumbles in Canadian history is very literal 鈥� in 1974, Progressive Conservative leader Robert Stanfield was running against Pierre Eliot Trudeau when he tossed around a football with some reporters during an airport stopover.

The Globe and Mail ran a front-page photo of Stanfield fumbling the ball 鈥� even though he鈥檇 caught it fine plenty of times during the back-and-forth.

After Stanfield鈥檚 loss, the photo was seen as emblematic of the way he鈥檇 fumbled a campaign against Trudeau, whose popularity had seriously waned since the 鈥淭rudeaumania鈥� days of six years earlier.

Some even blamed his loss on the photo.

Was that true, or was it a justification created after the fact?

Stanfield was then in his third election contest against Trudeau. Both were known quantities. If the fumble photo did anything, it likely cemented an already existing idea in voter鈥檚 minds.

In politics, the drip-drip-drip of bad news can often be deadly 鈥� even if, in retrospect, it seems like there was one big scandal.

Here in B.C., a good example is the downfall of the Social Credit party in 1991.

Bill Vander Zalm had resigned after being embroiled in a conflict of interest scandal over the sale of Fantasy Gardens.

But even before that, there had been a host of controversies, and Vander Zalm had been adept at making them worse.

Both before and after becoming premier, he鈥檇 shown a distaste for the way he was portrayed in editorial cartoons, most famously when he sued over a cartoon showing him pulling the wings off a fly.

But Vancouver Sun cartoonist Roy Peterson hit the Zalm again in the 1980s, when B.C. was subsidizing pro football, but also sending kids out of province for medical treatment because of hospital overcrowding.

Peterson鈥檚 simple but brutal cartoon 鈥� Vander Zalm in a football uniform, punting a baby between the uprights 鈥� drew some attention. But it drew more stories when Vander Zalm publicly complained about it. A simple cartoon summed up in one image two controversies and got under the then-premier鈥檚 skin to become a news story in itself.

Did that one cartoon bring down the Social Credit party?

Nope.

But it was one of a host of issues that the public had on its mind by election day in 1991.

One fumble seldom undoes a government. It鈥檚 the perception that is slowly created, issue by issue, as voters weigh their leaders. Eventually, it turns into a gut feeling.

鈥淭his guy鈥檚 going to fumble it.鈥�

The problem isn鈥檛 when you fumble the football. It鈥檚 when the voters take the fumble for granted that you鈥檙e in trouble.