Bennett Supporting Rae

Wonderful. The nice people finally decided that my blog was not a spam one and have unlocked it. A lot has gone on this week that I've been out of the loop on, and rather than attempt to catch up, I'm simply going to start from here.

So, once again, Rae has picked up a drop-out. While this doesn't impact the front-runner (Ignatieff) significantly--as Bennett's delegates and support are only minor--it does seem to indicate that the race has, for the time being, effectively dropped down to a two-party race.

For the last two months, I've viewed the race as a three and a half-horse race: Dion, Ignatieff, Rae, and maybe Kennedy. Ignatieff is unquestionably in the lead with his ex officio support and delegate numbers, and he has been receiving more press than any other candidate. Everyone else has been attacking him, trying to dislodge him.

But the general idea was that there were three other candidates close behind. But Kennedy has been receiving little attention in the press and has recently attract no new major supporters. Dion has received praise for his role in the debate, but he's also recently taken a lot flak from the auditor general for his environmental policies. He's gotten a lot of media attention, but he also hasn't picked up any major endorsements recently.

Bob Rae, however, seems to have pulled ahead of these two. He has attracted the support from both the hard-right (Bevilacqua) and the moderate left (Bennett), and he's been polling reasonably well lately. His fundraising numbers have been strong, and he has one of the highest profiles nationally (and certainly the highest in Ontario).

So good for Rae. We'll see what happens soon. Rae may pull further ahead of the other two and it will become a two-horse race, or it may be that the momentum of this will fade, with Rae failing to gain any additional endorsements or some of the other ones will gain some, e.g. if MHF or Brison were to drop out.

It's still an open race, but the murky waters may clear soon.