Those who saw and cheered Rooney Mara‘s Carol performance two months ago at the Cannes Film Festival and who agreed wholeheartedly when she won that festival’s Best Actress award may be chagrined or at least somewhat surprised to hear that the Weinstein Co. plans to campaign her for Best Supporting Actress. They’ve also decided to campaign the nearly-or-arguably-as-good Cate Blanchett, who plays the titular role, for Best Actress. The strategy, obviously, is for the Carol costars to not run against each other.

(l.) Cate Blanchett as former CBS news producer Mary Mapes in James Vanderbilt’s Truth; the real McCoy.

Update: And yet a bigger question may be which Blanchett lead performance will prevail as the strongest Best Actress contender — her Carol lead or her portrayal of former CBS news producer and author Mary Mapes in James Vanderbilt‘s Truth (Sony Pictures Classics), a dramatization of Mapes’ 2005 memoir “Truth and Duty: The Press, the President, and the Privilege of Power.” A friend who’s seen Truth says Blanchett’s performance is “incredible (no surprise) and I don’t see a world where she’s supporting — the film is hers. Redford’s Dan Rather role is supporting.”

Mapes’ book explains how and why Mapes and Rather lost their jobs in the wake of a 2004 report about a young George Bush having allegedly received preferential treatment in an attempt to duck military service in Vietnam.