for whom the international tolls (the broad view).

as our friend writes in the hill times today, there's a clear sense in which brian topp is the clear front-runner to succeed jack layton as head of the new democratic party of canada. let's very briefly recount topp's positional advantages at this point, in schematic terms:

1) strong connections among media types, skill at earning media - we saw this in the days following jack's death, when he surfaced as a contender out of nowhere, but also in his skillful domination of several news cycles during the early part of the week;
2) strong connections among new democratic types across the country, a lot of friends in the party and in labor, a lot of folks who see their values reflected in him, a lot of favors owed him. probably the country's pre-eminent backroom ndper, almost noone in the party today could touch the guy on these, and of those few who could, one of them, broadbent, is behind him;
3) a seamless campaign launch and intelligent campaign plan. it seems clear that he'll be doing laps: first, broadbent/boivin/team jack, next demonstrate support among electeds across the country, the higher profile the better, next, attempt to parlay that success into endorsements from labor and activist groups, finally and throughout, work on mps.

there's an implicit and probably winning strategy here on wooing the membership. first, he'll play the air game, to raise profile, raise funds, and position himself as a clear front-runner. the best way for topp to win is to be the non-mulcair, the party man to the politician, as it were.

next, but not long behind, he'll move to the ground game. topp's approach to memberships will almost certainly occur in three distinct ways: in recent leadership contest provinces like bc, sask and manitoba, he'll try to capitalize on links to former leadership camps, talking to their organizers and team members, getting their lists, trying to get endorsements, etc. here he has a commanding advantage over the other potential candidates. in provinces like ontario, alberta and the maritimes, he'll likely look to the unions as well as various ndp provincial elements and locals. topp is likely to be stronger with the older line types, and certainly he'll be the first to contact them. finally, in quebec, he'll do what he can to organize, likely out of ottawa and in conjunction with whatever caucus and q-section organizational support he can peel off mulcair (my guess: not much).

to these ends and with them in mind, his message is already clear: 1) on quebec, he says he's the architect and from the province; 2) on the backroom to frontroom, he's the architect of campaigns and governments; 3) on ndp values, he's old-line and jack's heir, but also savvy and pragmatic. these are appeals that ought to work well enough for him to capitalize well on his advantages.

onto the places where he could falter. basically, if adrian dix had run for ndp leader in 2010/2011 without ever having stood for election, there's no question he'd have fared poorly. topp is in the same position. topp's lack of fire, gravitas, charisma and parliamentary experience can't but be seen as strongly negative to most dippers, used to layton.

quebec remains a problem. on the one hand, the caucus is likely to come out strongly for mulcair, reshifting the narrative in a way that will affect the thinking of everyone from bc unionists to halifax enviros. it's very possible that a movement for mulcair develops out of itself, as it becomes clear that he's the best candidate to take the boots to harper and deliver a progressive government in ottawa. moreover, quebec membership numbers are so low, and support for a mulcair ndp so potentially high that with a powerful campaign, mulcair could potentially win the leadership by winning quebec and suffering close-ish losses in every other province.

a component that remains unclear at this point is the extent of mulcair's support outside of quebec. if mulcair could match topp outside of quebec, and blow him away inside of quebec, then topp will have to out-organize the quebecer in the field, potentially difficult if the media is going against him and he's forced to mount a campaign from the union left.

moreover, a core element of topp's strategy requires that he roll out the sort of campaign and support that make it clear that his is a team to join. however, precisely this element may well have the effect of chasing other candidates from the race, and catalyzing the leadership contest into a choice between mulcair and topp. and this is not necessarily to topp's advantage. the support that will go mulcair will likely go mulcair on the first ballot, and non-mulcair candidates' partisans' second ballot support will likely fall disproportionately to non-mulcair candidates. if topp pushes potential allies out of the race at the start, he cedes allies in membership sales that could lead to second ballot support.

so all told, we have a real front-runner in topp, a beatable front-runner, but one who a betting man would not be wise to bet against.