Liberal leadership

The weird thing about the Liberal party leadership race is that there is no way that every single one of the candidates can possibly think that they are the best person for the job or that they bring something unique to the job that the others don't have.

Party leadership races differ from regular job competitions in that the candidates all know who all the other candidates are (or who all the other potential candidates might be), so they can reasonably assess whether they are the best person for the job. Everyone's professional qualifications are a matter of public record, so why would you even put your hat in when it's clear you're nothing special?

Party leadership races differ from elections in that the candidates in each riding are affiliated with different parties. It doesn't matter of a particular candidate is not the single most qualified individual in the world, because they represent a larger party which contains a lot of people with different strengths. They only need to be competent, represent their party's platform, and be different from the other parties. But in a leadership race, everyone has essentially the same politics. I'm not sure, but I believe policy is set by the party in general, so it's not like the leader is just a person representing a certain policy platform. The leader needs to be exceptional, not just competent.

There is no way all 10(?) of the leadership candidates are exceptional or are without question the best person for the job. Quite a few of them have shortcomings that even I can see. There is no clear winner as yet so it does make sense for a number of people to run, but some of these people I don't understand why they're running. If I were a member of the Liberal party I'd be emailing them all to ask them why they think they're the best choice, but I'm not a member of any parties so this isn't something I need to take action on.