Leadership 2009 - Speech Wrapup

Having had time to digest this morning's proceedings, here are a few followup thoughts.

All of the candidates can claim at least some success from their speeches. Higgins took on the critiques of her candidacy head-on and seems to have won a positive reaction in doing so. But as the only candidate without a video and after leaving time on the table, she'll face some disadvantage in making her message stick after going first.

Lingenfelter didn't deliver any surprises: anybody who's focused primarily on attacking the Sask Party will have enjoyed his presentation, while those looking for new vision in doing so won't find much to work with.

If anybody won new votes this morning, it was probably Pedersen - who both presented some named supporters for the first time, and delivered a powerful and well-received speech of his own. The only downside is that he was still very much in the mode of introducing himself, while the other candidates were able to target messages to an established base.

Finally, Meili played it fairly safe, spending a lot of time on familiar videos and third-party endorsements. But he was also able to show his campaign's combination of establishment support and youthful enthusiasm - and his closing was effective in leaving the message that he's ready to lead immediately as the last message heard by the audience.

We'll find out soon whether many votes shifted this morning - not to mention whether today's voting will ultimately affect the race's results. And I'll of course let you know as soon as the results are in.