A series of online and offline hustings meetings were held around the country, and were listed on the party's official news page for the contest.

[8] Various contenders ruled themselves out early on (including notably Vince Cable,[10] Ed Davey,[11] Lynne Featherstone,[12] Julia Goldsworthy,[13] Simon Hughes,[1] Susan Kramer,[11] David Laws,[14] Sarah Teather[15] and Steve Webb[16]), leading to the possibility of only two candidates achieving sufficient nominations.

John Hemming announced on his blog that he wished to stand, and that he was taking soundings from colleagues, but he went on to acknowledge that it would be too difficult for him to obtain sufficient MP nominators.

Former leader Charles Kennedy initially said he was "highly unlikely" to run again, and that it is not part of his "game plan", but did not completely rule out the possibility.

[17] Nick Clegg took a more multilateralist line than Chris Huhne, who was opposed to the Trident ballistic missile system.

Nick Clegg favoured retaining[citation needed] half of Trident's arsenal to use as a bargaining chip in 2010 negotiations; Chris Huhne saw saving money on the nuclear deterrent as being a viable means of raising money to fund greater spending on army equipment and conventional weaponry with the possibility of a smaller deterrent system[citation needed].

[18] On most issues the two candidates shared common positions on the environment, identity cards, counter-terrorism and the war in Iraq.

[24] A YouGov poll of party members gave Clegg a 56% to 44% lead in late November, although about half of respondents had yet to vote.

Huhne stood by the result, saying "Nick Clegg won fair and square on the rules counting the ballot papers that arrived in by the deadline.