Leadership 2009 Week in Review - May 10

For all the developments in the leadership race in the last week, there's remarkably little change in the newest outcomes chart. That's based largely on the fact that while the week has been an extremely difficult one for Dwain Lingenfelter's campaign, the news this week as to how many memberships his campaign actually sold would have given him a larger lead to begin with if I'd known about it sooner. So in putting together this week's numbers (which are of course based purely on my own personal impressions rather than any scientific process), the damage to Lingenfelter's campaign so far is almost entirely canceled out by the fact that he probably should have been placed further ahead to start with.

That said, there might now be even more of a gap between Lingenfelter's chances of winning on the first ballot and those of his prospect of picking up any meaningful support if more than one vote is required. And this week was the first point where it's seemed remotely plausible that Lingenfelter might manage to get eliminated early in the proceedings - particularly if he holds out against any action when it comes to the campaign volunteers who end up getting pointed out in the Hale report.

Meanwhile, Deb Higgins's campaign had another relatively quiet week. But unlike earlier in the campaign when Higgins' silence seemed to reflect some disorganization, staying mostly below the radar may be an understandable strategy for the apparent second-place candidate when the front-runner's campaign is at a point of potential collapse.

The primary development in the Meili campaign this week was the release of a number of issue-based videos. Along with his restrained take on the Lingenfelter controversy, that strategy is undoubtedly building an impression of Meili as an exceptionally positive and substantive candidate - but it's still an open question whether that message will get to enough members before the deadline to make up for the initial gap in name recognition.

Finally, Yens Pedersen made plenty of waves with his call for Lingenfelter to step down. Those can't hurt from the standpoint of getting his name into the public eye, but would figure to make Pedersen a tougher sell for anybody in any camp who's more focused on party unity than the differences between individual contestants - making it tougher for Pedersen to collect votes on later ballots even as it likely increases his odds of sticking around to see them.

So where do I see that combination of developments leaving the candidates? Here's the chart once more, again with last week's estimates in parentheses:

Candidate	1st Ballot Win	Final Ballot	Final Ballot Win	4th on 1st	Total Win
Dwain Lingenfelter	35 (30)	44 (52)	12 (18)	2 (0)	47 (48)
Deb Higgins	4 (5)	30 (32)	23 (21)	3 (5)	27 (26)
Ryan Meili	3 (3)	33 (34)	21 (20)	8 (10)	24 (23)
Yens Pedersen	0 (0)	9 (6)	2 (3)	45 (47)	2 (3)