While the federal Conservative leadership race is already drawing a range of aspiring successors to Stephen Harper with more than a year to go to a convention, the leader the Tories need may be the one they can’t have.

Conservative MPs and strategists alike have been singing Rona Ambrose’s praises since she quickly found her footing in her new role as interim leader.

Conservative MP James Bezan said even constituents in his riding have asked him about the possibility of Ambrose as leader because she has impressed them.

“But Rona made a decision, as did the other members of Parliament who put their names forward as potential interim leaders, that essentially you’re taking yourself out of future race for leader,” said Bezan.

Conservative MP Peter Kent called Ambrose’s leadership “terrific”.

“She’s been exactly what we needed,” said Kent.

Ambrose became interim leader on the party — which, for public consumption, means leader of the Conservatives in the House of Commons, particularly during question period — after the Oct. 19, 2015 Liberal sweep prompted the resignation of Stephen Harper, who after nine years as prime minister ran a campaign that did little to mitigate the desire for change that became key to Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau’s victory.

Ambrose has led the effort to put Harper’s unpopular leadership and divisive campaign in the rearview mirror, both with the optics of her performance as an assertive woman leading the party in QP and in consistent efforts — some of them controversial — to distance the party from Harper’s most unpopular policies.

Ambrose has asserted on a number of occasions that she’s not interested in running for the leadership. In December, she told the National Post, “I don’t have an interest in the permanent leadership. My job is to support those who want to run.”

And the Conservative Party’s constitution effectively disqualifies the interim leader as a party leadership contender. The constitution states, “A person appointed as Interim Leader may not be nor become a candidate in the leadership selection process.”

Among the leadership hopefuls on the expected if officially undeclared list so far are former Harper cabinet ministers Tony Clement, Peter MacKay, Kellie Leitch, Maxime Bernier, Michael Chong and Lisa Raitt. Bombastic television personality Kevin O’Leary has also declared what may or may not be a serious interest in the job.

As Postmedia columnist Michael Den Tandt sees it, however, a draft-Ambrose movement, were it to yield an amendment to party rules, could change this and allow Ambrose to run. In a March 10 column, Den Tandt wrote, “Judging from what I’ve heard from some Conservatives recently, including at the recent Manning Centre conference in Ottawa, such a move would not be unwelcome.”

Cory Hann, a spokesman for the Conservative Party, said after seeing the “fantastic job” Ambrose is doing it’s understandable, “that there are those who want her included as a candidate.” However, the leadership race is formally underway and the rules have been set, he said in an email.

Tim Powers, Conservative strategist and vice-chairman of Summa Strategies, said when it comes to changing the constitution in an effort to allow Ambrose to run, “anything is possible.” But Powers doesn’t think Ambrose has any interest in the job.

“I think she views herself as having a clear mission right now and wants to leave the party in good shape and begin the healing and the outreach,” he said.

“I just don’t get the feeling from her, at least right now, that she wants to run for the job permanently,” he added.

Powers said Ambrose’s efforts has been a “win for the party” because she’s not being judged as somebody who is using her position as an advantage to run for permanent leader.

He pointed to Ambrose’s meeting with the four Progressive Conservative leaders of Atlantic Canada as a big achievement, particularly in a region where the party’s trying to rebuild, having lost all of its seats in the election.

“I think she’s able to do all that because she’s not seen as doing all of this for purposes other than the betterment of the Conservative Party,” he said, likening her role to that of former Interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae when he took the helm after Michael Ignatieff’s defeat in 2011.

“If she does for the Conservatives what Bob Rae did for Liberals, then she will have been an enormous success and by that I mean continuing to have a credible strong opposition, a voice that’s in all of the discussions and debates while others are pursing the leadership of the party,” Powers said.

Powers said he would have liked to see Ambrose run “if she had wanted to.” He described her as talented, credible, experienced, young and connected.

He said she’s been steadfast in changing the tone and image of the Conservatives, which as been very much “bitter old white guys in blue suits.”

Bezan said she made the personal decision to be interim leader and he supports that.

“We’re all so proud of her and happy with the way she’s really conducted herself in the public eye how well she’s performed in question period and in the House…she has really staked out her role as a powerful leader,” said Bezan.

Former cabinet minister and Conservative MP Diane Finley agreed. “I think she’s doing a great job holding the Liberals and Trudeau to account, while building a strong, united caucus,” she said in an email.

Kent said that a week after the election he expressed his concern to party leadership and colleagues that it was unfortunate the constitution does not allow an interim leader to, at some point before a leadership vote, be able to step down and compete as a candidate.

That was before Ambrose was chosen as Interim leader but Kent says “I still believe that.”

“But we have a Constitution and there has been no move to amend it,” he said, adding that Ambrose would rank well among the potential leadership candidates.

“It is what is,” he said.