This one will be decided by the regionals. Consider the candidates:
Lee Moak: Dresses up nice and says what you want to hear, whomever you are. In the end however, he is bought and paid for by DAL management and has a nice cushy job waiting for him when he is ready to make the move. Add to that the anger of the NWA pilots for what happened in the merger with the back room with Prater and you may well have a DAL split in the voting booth.
The other wild card here is that despite the discussion being "banned" in their offices, you can bet that Moak is considering taking DAL independant.
Scott Stratton: Non legacy. He could be the most qualified man on the planet, yet the legacies will never allow a "mere" freight pilot to be President. Remember what happened when Beebe stepped down and FedEx ran an incredibly qualified guy for VP of Finance. Prater ran Helling; who had screwed up everything he had touched against him, and won. Jalmer was giddy because he had a guy they could keep in the fog about finances.
John Prater: The village in Illinois left a message at the Diplomat. They don't want their idiot back. They found a better one. Clearly if ALPA survives...and I pray it does...he will go down in history as the worst mistake ever made by a BOD.
Paul Rice: Despite some warts, Paul has the accumen to run the organization. He has the ability to pull various groups together and find common ground and he knows that unless everyone finds that way to do it, not only will ALPA not survive, the profession will get picked apart by management. The same managements who laughed their a**es off when Prater got picked. Rice has a good reputation in the industry and has respect on Capitol Hill that Prater never had and Moak only thinks he has.
In the end, I suspect this will not be a first ballot presidency vote. CAL will see that Prater is not sustainable and will go with UAL. That will knock out Stratton and Prater in round one. I suspect in round two...and maybe three...that the regionals will be the ones who will look and see which one of the survivors will actually listen to them and not just tell them what they want to hear.
What will be even more interesting is the race for First Vice President. As of yesterday morning, NO ONE had announced for it. A historic first. None of these four are willing to consider the job right now. The question is which one will consider accepting it as a fall back position should they get knocked out of the race for President, or pull out prior to the voting for President.
My guess? No matter where a FDX guy goes for the next week, he'll be bird dogged by at least two of his new best friends from ATL who will promise the world.
YMMV