The Globe and Mail

To the extent there was a winner yesterday amongst Liberal leadership candidates it was clearly Dominic LeBlanc.

First off, he deftly played the reasonable middle-ground card against both Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff and came off as the only serious one in the whole dispute about the openness of the debate.

Secondly, by most accounts from those in the room during the "debate", LeBlanc more than held his own against Ignatieff and showed that his vapid op-ed from last week was more poor delegation than a reflection of the candidate's intellect.

So what are LeBlanc's odds of winning this thing?

In leadership 2006, I told everyone who would listen that whichever of Gerard Kennedy or Stephane Dion finished third on the second ballot would win, so I'm not one to fall for false media narratives.

This time the media has it right - Ignatieff is way ahead and anything other than a first ballot win at this point would be something of a surprise.

So what does LeBlanc need to do?

1. Hold Ignatieff under 50% on the first ballot. Odds? 25% at best.

2. Get ahead of Rae on first ballot. Odds? 10-15% but too early to say with any certainty.

3. Don't get too far ahead of Rae that he considers dropping out prior to the convention. Odds? Who knows.

4. Have Rae's delegates break LeBlanc over Ignatieff by over 90%

Don't get me wrong. Not a single delegate has been chosen yet; a lot can change.

Is it possible that all four steps above could happen? Yeah. Would I bet what's left of my life savings on it? Not likely.

The interesting dynamic is that in order for Rae to win, he needs LeBlanc to be very strong (though obviously not pass him); otherwise Ignatieff is guaranteed to win on the first ballot. So in that sense, maybe Rae won yesterday too.