Several articles have indicated that Jonathan Powell was (and why not is?) running Blair's lobbying campaign, and Sir Kim Darroch handling the "diplomacy".

I think it's quite counter-productive to consider Blair over and done with. The media campaign to make him look inevitable didn't take on in the non-English-speaking media, and it got broken by the opposition to Blair in Britain itself. That doesn't mean the bid is not ongoing, with less public drum-banging, since that seems to set off a strong contrary reaction.