Linda Diebel has a run-down on the leadership race today offering “informed speculation to Sunday Star readers, having interviewed some two-dozen analysts and campaign advisers about projections and permutations.“

While she seems to have a fairly good grasp on the relative strength of the candidates, I did find this projection of hers in Quebec interesting:

A fun-with-numbers prediction has Dion coming out of Super Weekend with 850 Quebec delegates, Rae 800 and Ignatieff 700.

First of all, let’s put aside the fact that Ignatieff is obviously going to win the province. My issue here tends to be with the way Diebel is projecting Quebec’s 2350+ delegates. Mainly, that Quebec doesn’t have 2350+ delegates.

Consider that 14 delegates elected a riding times 75 ridings equals 1050 delegates. With 2 ex-officio a riding plus Senators, aboriginal delegates, privy councilors and commission delegates, and you can probably add 250 to that total. Hell, let’s make it a round 300. That still leaves us roughly 1000 delegates short for the province assuming that the other six candidates get zero delegates. There are a few possibilities to consider here:

a) There are 250 University campus clubs in Quebec
b) There are 1000 women’s clubs in Quebec
c) Quebec gets 1000 special delegates due to it’s “nation” status

Or maybe, just maybe, Diebel’s Quebec projections are a bit off base…