It might come down to a race between three Liberal candidates from Quebec: Justin Trudeau and Marc Garneau, and Martin Cauchon.
The federal Liberals are choosing their new leader April 14, 2013.
But in reality, everyone in Canada has the right to vote. You only have to declare yourself a "sympathizer" and that costs nothing and you have the right to vote.
This gives a huge advantage to Justin Trudeau who is better known among Canadians who are not liberals than his opponents.
The leadership race will be officially launched November 14, and candidates have until mid-January to file the necessary documents and find $ 75,000 in entry fees to launch their campaign.
The charismatic young MP Justin Trudeau is already well ahead of the others, but he has yet to confirm his intentions. Anything can happen.
Many people were sure Bob Rae would run for the leadership until he said otherwise.
Marc Garneau said yesterday, "I am very serious. I want to be a candidate." '
That sounds clear enough but it is still not official.
Garneau says needs to express his vision for Canada, build a platform, and put together a campaign team. He also needs to find a lot of money because a national campaign does cost a lot of money.
Garneau is hardly known in the rest of Canada outside Quebec, except of course in the space community.
He may lack the charisma of Justin Trudeau, but he does have a good record in the House of Commons and he did get elected in Quebec in the last elections against the orange tide of the NDP, which is more than many liberals can say. His decision is expected in October.
Martin Cauchon is a former justice minister in the Jean Chrétien government who could have or should have run for the leadership twice before. He has begun meeting Liberal MPs and senators and attending a lot of bean suppers, spaghetti dinners and rubber chicken events.
Cauchon, bilingual and politically experienced, is still mulling it over.
He was minister of justice during the Liberal sponsorship era. That doesn't help.
The Conservatives have been saying for years that they have all kinds of stuff on the sponsorship scandal that has never come out. Is it nothing more than scare tactics?
Despite his retirement from politics in 2004, Cauchon has maintained a network of organizers in several provinces across the country.
Three other Liberal MPs Dominic LeBlanc, David McGuinty and Joyce Murray are thinking of joining the race. Former MPs Martha Hall Findlay and Gerard Kennedy could also be in the running, as well as Ottawa lawyer David Bertschi and constitutionalist Deborah Coyne who knew Justin's father better than most of us.
But for the moment, the race seems to be between the top three.
