The NDP leadership line-up is a central casting dream come true. But will it stick to the scenario carefully drafted by party elders such as Ed Broadbent and Roy Romanow or will it veer off script?

With seven candidates in the running and at least one more to come, the pack of contenders to Jack Layton’s succession covers a wide swath of demographic territory.

On Friday, Toronto MP Peggy Nash became the first woman to enter the race.

The group she joins boasts representation from Central, Western and Atlantic Canada. It also includes a member of the First Nations and a candidate from the growing ranks of Canada’s visible minorities.

But diversity is not the only feature that distinguishes this line-up.

While it has all the makings of a decent future NDP cabinet, it has few of the trimmings that project strong leadership.

None of the contenders really jumps out as an obvious choice. Most have toiled long enough in politics to establish a reputation as solid performers, but none is a national household name and that is no accident.

It would be an exaggeration at this point to ascribe a head-turning presence to any of them.

In a federal leadership campaign, proficiency in both official languages is often a predictor of success.

The three candidates who made up the top tier in the 2006 Liberal leadership campaign all had a French-language edge on most of their competition. So did Stephen Harper at the time of his victorious Conservative leadership campaign.

In this case, nothing short of fluency in French should be expected from the leader of a party that owes its leading opposition role in the House of Commons to Quebec voters.

To varying degrees, as many as five of the NDP contenders could be described as suitably bilingual.

If the past is any indication, a race that features a crowded middle field could see a dark horse win the title.

Joe Clark’s unlikely 1977 victory and Stéphane Dion’s 2006 upset win were products of similar dynamics.

Given that, the current media narrative of the campaign should be taken with a grain of salt.

The perception that former party president Brian Topp is the front-runner is essentially based on the impressive establishment endorsements he has been accumulating.

Broadbent and Romanow jumped on his bandwagon at the earliest opportunity and they have since been joined by a steady stream of party apparatchiks.

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But such golden endorsements only go so far especially when the winner is selected through the universal suffrage of the membership.

In the days of delegated conventions, it was possible for party elites to decisively tip the balance in favor of an anointed candidate. But even then, party activists tended to be guided by their own judgment rather than by high-profile commendations.

Without establishment support, John Turner would not have beat Jean Chrétien in 1984 and Jean Charest, rather than Kim Campbell, would have succeeded Brian Mulroney in 1993.

If Topps’ performance in the leadership debates does not justify the early backing of so many NDP luminaries, his endorsements will lose much of their potency.

Notwithstanding the media hype, there is also no factual evidence that Thomas Mulcair is starting the campaign in the runner-up position and no guarantee that he is bound for a strong finish.

His support remains heavily concentrated in Quebec — a province that accounts for an insignificant fraction of the NDP membership.

In a one-member-one-vote leadership process, the trend is harder to pin down and the media often gets it wrong.

Among the major federal parties, only the now-defunct Canadian Alliance has used the unadulterated formula by which the next NDP leader will be chosen.

Stockwell Day — who beat Reform founder Preston Manning to the job of first Alliance leader — was a product of a universal vote of the party membership. So was Harper in his first federal leadership incarnation.

On both occasions, most of the media bet on the wrong horse.