Virtue of a dubious front runner (9)
I believe the answer is:
favourite
'front runner' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both people as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps there's an association between them I don't understand?
'virtue of a dubious' is the wordplay.
'dubious' is an anagram indicator.
'virtue'+'of'+'a'='virtueofa'
'virtueofa' with letters rearranged gives 'FAVOURITE'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for favourite that I've seen before include "Preferred" , "that attracts lots of money" , "leading contender" , "Specially dear person - likely winner" , "Sir Walter Raleigh was one" .)