Leadership 2009 Week in Review - May 17

This time last week, the release of the Hale report last week looked to have the potential to radically reshape the Saskatchewan NDP leadership race. But it's instead served only to strengthen a couple of the forces that have been developing since the start of the race.

Dwain Lingenfelter's combined response of trying to declare the membership controversy closed despite a need for accountability within his campaign and claiming that it didn't take the leadership race seriously enough to think it needed to bring in votes looks to have largely satisfied his true believers. But while the result should be a boost in Lingenfelter's prospect of a first-ballot win, the same combination looks to be making him increasingly unlikely to pull in support from other campaigns on any later ballot.

Meanwhile, the main beneficiary of any Link fatigue looks to be Ryan Meili, as a late-campaign theme has essentially fallen in his lap to frame the rest of the leadership race.

So with those developments in mind, here are my latest (again, 100% pure guesswork) projections as to the possible outcomes:

Candidate	1st Ballot Win	Final Ballot	Final Ballot Win	4th on 1st	Total Win
Dwain Lingenfelter	38 (35)	43 (44)	10 (12)	1 (2)	48 (47)
Ryan Meili	3 (3)	34 (33)	23 (21)	6 (8)	26 (24)
Deb Higgins	2 (4)	29 (30)	22 (23)	3 (3)	24 (27)
Yens Pedersen	0 (0)	8 (9)	2 (2)	47 (45)	2 (2)