With less than two weeks left in the election campaign, our panel of commentators share their thoughts on how the campaign is going for the various parties just ahead of the leaders’ debates, with the French debate taking place on Sept. 8 and the English debate on Sept. 9. The text of the interviews has been edited for clarity and brevity.   Joe Oliver: Leaders’ Debates and ‘Knockout Punches’ Former Conservative MP and minister of finance In leaders’ debates, there usually aren’t any knockout punches, but occasionally there are. During the debate in [the 1984 election], when talking about patronage appointments to the Senate, John Turner said, “I had no option,” and Brian Mulroney said, “You had an option, sir.” That was really big. In the [Sept. 2 TVA French-language] debate, Erin O’Toole asked Justin Trudeau about giving a raise to [former chief of defence staff Jonathan Vance, who was …