The dark cars with the tinted windows roll up and Jack Layton emerges, an RCMP detail, as all candidates for prime minister are afforded, in tow. For a second, in suit and tie, he looks serious, but then he thrusts a hand into a pants pocket and the smile returns — the eager grin that's as much a fixture of his face as that moustache. His younger sister, travelling with him on this campaign, brings him a glass of water, the same glass of water that is brought to him before every engagement, and Layton takes a gulp. He walks then toward the faux-marble podium here at a small public square in the middle of downtown Montreal, water fountains and trees and gleaming glass towers behind him for the sake of the cameras, smiling even wider as a dozen NDP candidates applaud his arrival.

After some fiddling about, the tour techs had positioned the spotlight just so. Another choreographer, a short woman wearing all black with a matching headset, had lined the candidates up nicely behind the podium, adjusting for symmetry and reminding those to the right and left to turn slightly inward. After introductions from two of those candidates — including Thomas Mulcair, who appears visibly giddy in his presence — Layton steps to the podium and ad-libs a joke about some of the travelling press having been out a little late the night before, mindful of course to refer to the scene of this revelry as "my hometown." Then he makes his pitch — the altogether audacious point of all this. "You deserve strong leadership on climate change. You deserve a prime minister who is going to stand up to the big polluters and the boardroom table interests when it comes to the environment," he says, by way of outlining his party's environmental platform. "On Oct. 14, I'm asking for your support to be that prime minister."

The morning sun is bright, the air is not yet too warm and the pitch is as subtle as a punch in the chest. Stéphane Dion, his main rival for the hearts and minds of those on the left, is mentioned only to assert the Liberal leader's irrelevance. ("You may have noticed I haven't had much to say about Mr. Dion in this election, and that may not change," Layton says. "I'm beginning to think that Mr. Dion is not going to be the main issue in this election.") The heft and force of Layton's rhetorical energies are reserved for Stephen Harper.

A reporter asks about a new NDP ad that takes vicious aim at the Conservative leader, a French clip filled with soldiers and tanks and the ghostly visage of the U.S. President. "I believe that a lot of people are concerned about the direction that Stephen Harper is taking the country," Layton says. "And I don't apologize for taking him on the kind of future that his policies will take us toward."

Another reporter sarcastically wonders why the NDP campaign has had an uncanny habit of following the Conservative tour across the country. "We're challenging the Prime Minister," Layton intones, refusing to take the joke. "And hoping to replace him."

Before the time for questions comes to an end, someone asks if Layton's worried about one of this campaign's televised debates being overshadowed by a U.S. vice-presidential debate, scheduled for the same night. Layton takes the opportunity to all but threaten the Prime Minister with physical harm. "I hope that people will tune into the debate because I'll promise you this," he says, "I'm going to challenge Stephen Harper for his job like he's never been challenged before."

In the first week of Jack Layton's third federal campaign, the charter jet emblazoned with his name travelled 13,484 km, touching down in 11 cities — a pace and path befitting the pitch. Jack Layton wants to be prime minister. The party, emboldened by Layton's personal popularity, has put him before all else. And in addition to saying so, loudly and insistently, Layton and the NDP seem determined to look the part. "For the first time in a long time, the leader of the official opposition is not the prime minister in waiting," says Brad Lavigne, the seriously enthusiastic party strategist and television pundit. "The prime minister in waiting in Canada is Jack Layton. The campaign has been built around that premise."

In his first remarks, delivered to cheering supporters across the river from Ottawa, the Parliament buildings looming behind him, Layton spoke transparently of change, begging for comparisons to Barack Obama. He spoke wistfully of the "kitchen table," that iconic cliché of Americana and an image he clings to so consistently that travelling reporters dubbed the NDP plane Kitchen Air.

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