Mr Maehara is the best chance the DPJ has of somebody even approaching Mr Koizumi's stature.
Maehara is 49 years old and has been in the Diet for 17 years.
Maehara is probably the DPJ politician with the highest general popularity and confidence in leadership ability.
So now it is a horserace, by all accounts with Noda and Maehara in the lead.
Seiji Maehara, the new foreign minister in Mr Kan's government, is on the party's realist wing.
This appears to be happening with his co-minister Yukio Edano, who takes an opposing view from Maehara.
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Moving in September 2010 to the Foreign Ministry, Maehara again deported himself with aplomb and with extraordinary effectiveness.
Seiji Maehara - the public's favourite - would, at 49, become Japan's youngest leader since World War II.
"Democratic Party and LDP defense policy is basically the same, " says Seiji Maehara, a Democratic Party lower house member.
Maehara is believed to have entered the race because Noda had failed to garner enough support to ensure election.
In debt-strapped Japan, Mr Maehara thinks promoting growth should come before tax increases.
In Tokyo, opposition lawmaker Seiji Maehara, a former foreign minister, was similarly pessimistic.
But Shoji Nishida, an opposition lawmaker, heard that a photograph of her and Mr Maehara hung in her restaurant.
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Mr Noda is seeking to deal with this by rehabilitating his wonkish friend, Mr Maehara, as the party's policy chief.
Mr Maehara says he did not know of her gift, and she says she did not know it was forbidden.
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Before announcing his candidacy, Maehara followed all other candidates in making a formal call on DPJ boss Ozawa Ichiro, to request upport.
And as Economics Minister, Maehara knows this, and also knows he will get tangled in the skewed politics of nuclear in post-Fukushima Japan.
FORBES: Fukushima Slugfest -- Japan's New Nuclear Regulation Authority
It was minor mishap that ostensibly forced his resignation, so minor one wonders whether Maehara simply took the opportunity to temporarily exit the limelight.
But the party's anti-Ozawa camp is also split, because Yoshihiko Noda, the finance minister, may also run and he shares some supporters with Mr Maehara.
Seiji Maehara, a hawk on China who argues for pursuing growth before raising taxes to restore the nation's fiscal health, is favourite among the public.
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The National Strategy Conference (headed by Maehara Seiji) will also produce by mid-year a comprehensive program of reforms to stimulating and promote economic growth and domestic employment.
Another one-time front-runner is the fiscally-conservative finance minister Yoshihiko Noda, 54, but he is hindered by the fact he shares a factional support base with Mr Maehara.
Seiji Maehara, another popular figure, was named national policy minister.
When Seiji Maehara, the transport minister, forced Japan Airlines (JAL), the national flag-carrier, into a court-administered bankruptcy, he reportedly had to flout the wishes of his senior civil servants.
His position required Maehara to confront the vested local government and public works interest groups for on-going or planned pork-barrel public works projects, including some notoriously wasteful and unnecessary dams.
The speed of Mr Maehara's resignation shocked the government.
Mr Maehara blundered during a brief stint as opposition leader five years ago, and he quit as foreign minister in March over a fuss about an illegal donation from a Korean woman.
For Mr Maehara, the repercussions were swift.
ECONOMIST: Koreans in Japan: A foreigner in her own home | The
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