... And Peggy Nash Makes it Seven

The first woman in to bid for the NDP leadership promises to further liven up an already heated race.

Toronto NDP MP Peggy Nash has thrown her hat into the ring for her party's leadership, making her the first woman and seventh contender to become Jack Layton's successor. Calling her bid "the worst kept secret" on Parliament Hill, Nash made her run official at a news conference at a hotel in her west-end Toronto riding of High Park. The trilingual Nash, the NDP's finance critic, will have her hands full in trying to beat out former party president Brian Topp, Quebec MP and noted beard-haver Thomas Mulcair, former Cree leader Romeo Saganash, B.C. MP Nathan Cullen, Ottawa MP Paul Dewar, and Nova Scotia MP Martin Singh. Either way, her addition truly gives NDP members a broad swath of candidates to choose from. Like Cullen and Dewar, Nash could prove to be a wildcard in upending the supposed frontrunners Topp and Mulcair particularly because she could leach support in Toronto away from Topp, who's been running as the establishment favourite despite having no experience as an elected politician.