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Despite the efforts of all parties, this election has not yet gelled in the public consciousness. The most recent Globe and Mail Strategic Counsel poll indicates people hold the same impressions they did before the campaign:

Things are going relatively well in the province, there is no outcry for change, they tend to prefer Liberals to Progressive Conservatives, and they tend to prefer John Tory to Dalton McGuinty.

Since voters think both the province and government are doing well, the lack of any other dominant frame around the campaign favours the Liberals. Consider it 10 lost days for the PCs.

The frame they need is around leadership, but they have strayed from that with the faith-based schools initiative. Even if that issue has not cost them votes, it has cost them by diverting attention away from the leadership question.

Meanwhile, the Liberals are probably seeing that faith-based schools won't have the legs to be the "ballot question" on election day. It already feels as if they are trying to keep the issue on artificial life support. The Liberals will have to decide if they can trump Tory's leadership advantage with policy, or whether they should stand and fight on leadership. One of the considerations they will be weighing is what frame will most motivate the centre-left strategic voter.

The NDP campaign appears stalled and they lack an obvious way back into the campaign dynamic.

Nonetheless, the Liberals need to steal some NDP and Green votes to be in majority territory.

Polls indicate the NDP vote is soft and many current NDP supporters are prepared to move. The Liberals need those voters to believe that stopping a Tory victory is a more important imperative than voting for the NDP.

The stakes are high in tonight's debate. In many Ontario elections the debate has proven to be a decisive moment (think Harris/McLeod in 1995), especially in campaigns about nothing in particular.

John Tory needs to get past faith-based schools, reassure voters he will run the province much like McGuinty is and focus on leadership, which polls show is the only real advantage the PCs have.

He needs to avoid walking into a debate that distracts from that - like, heaven forbid, public versus private health care. I would expect him to bring every issue back to leadership, and back to broken promises.

The Premier needs to harness the current high levels of satisfaction with his government and motivate the strategic vote by raising fears of change.

He must make changing the government appear to have consequences.

In order to appeal to those swing voters he will want to make Tory into Harris by contrasting his government's record on issues like health, education and the environment with those of the Harris government.

The faith-based schools issue can be effective, not as the ballot question but as a way to raise questions about Tory's judgment overall and whether he is really a centrist Progressive Conservative as opposed to those real Conservatives that Ontarians don't trust as much.

Howard Hampton needs to claim some territory. He will likely take a page from Jack Layton's book and lump the Liberals and PCs together so that those centre left strategic voters stay in his corner.

At the same time, he needs to identify a cause or issue that justifies a voter opting out of the central question of who will form government in order to strengthen New Democrats.

Given their geographic bases in the province, the most fertile ground may well be a populist appeal about the loss of jobs in the manufacturing sector.

David Herle, a political consultant and strategist, is a principal of the Gandalf Group, a polling and market-research firm