While none of the "not-Romney"s have great electability, the fact that one or another of them keeps coming up even or ahead of him, despite his tremendous organizational and money advantages, does inform some about his fairly poor electability as well. And the process is losing him the middle as it goes on, even while he fails to convince the right he is their man. Will various flavors of “not-Romney” keep him from clinching it before the convention? Santorum surge two does not seem to be fading so fast. And if it reaches that point, how do you see that playing out? (Other than leading to a Reaganesque Obama “mandate” for a second term?)
Does Romney end up naming Paul or Gingerich as VP to get he final votes? Do the not-Romneys somehow band together behind one of them? And if none of the above then who? No, not Palin.
While Paul’s got no chance of clinching the nomination, I’ve read that his delegates are infiltrating the caucus process and trying to get themselves nominated as delegates in disproportionately large numbers. Since this is all well within the caucus rules and perfectly legal, Paul could wind up as a controller of a serious block of votes at the convention. I’d love to see him leverage himself into a good position-- maybe Secretary of State? His foreign policy is one area where I largely agree with him.
Unlikely maybe, very unlikely perhaps even, but zero?
Read the links. The scenario requires that Gingrich picks up some Southern delegates, Santorum takes much of the Midwest, and Romney gets most of the West and Northeast. Add in Paul picking up his smattering of maybe 100 delegates along the way and then, as one of those articles puts it:
According to NYT, Romney and Paul are on personally friendly terms and Paul is probably going to see Romney as a lesser evil than Santorum or Gingrich. And a brokered convention does not necessarily mean an Obama landslide-despite the Ford vs. Reagan battle in 1976, Carter barely won.
I think someone writes more or less that same article every cycle though. They project that the early results of the primarys will form a pattern that continues through to the Convention. But we never end up with a brokered convention. Every time either one person ends up running away with it after Super Tuesday, or it narrows down to a two person race such that one contestant or the other, after super-delegates are added, gets an outright majority on the first ballot.
Maybe this time will be different, but I doubt it.
I’m also saying doubtful. I think Romney’s the only one who’s got the resources to run a full campaign. The others are basically putting everything they’ve got into a short campaign in the hopes that they can achieve a temporary lead and that will cause new resources to flow to them which they can then use to sustain a full campaign. The problem is that if the flow of new resources doesn’t start immediately, they’ve used up everything they’ve got and their campaign crashs.
Santorum may look like a strong contender right now but remember that Paul looked like a strong contender right after Iowa and New Hampshire and Gingrich looked like a contender right after South Carolina but they weren’t able to maintain that level. Romney has been in first or second place in every state so far (except Minnesota where he was third). No other candidate has been able to compete in every vote - and that’s why Romney’s got 91 out of the 136 delegates committed so far.
Fucking zero means zero. I will eat my cat if Paul gets a major cabinet position. His party already considers him an obstructionary pain in the ass. They’re not going to want to give him a platform to gadfly about. And any President who DID give him that would reap what he sows when Paul is off trying to convince the press corps that three or more of his partner cabinet secretaries should be out of a job.
Note, also, that this is coming out during the lull before Super Tuesday. This is the time where writers have to find SOMETHING to write about. Things are happening but not enough to keep the reporters occupied. (God knows I’ve done it!)
I think the odds of a “brokered convention” (if that means Chris Christie, Jeb Bush or Sarah Palin riding in on a white donkey to save the day) are extremely small. Typically someone gets going in time to have the required delegate majority and I expect the process to shake out a “winner” or at least someone with a dominating lead sometime after Super Tuesday.
It’s not impossible that Ron Paul would be named to a post in the event of a GOP triumph.
Maybe ambassador to Somalia, or a new cabinet post (i.e. Secretary of the Crazy).
I don’t see the technical difficulty of a brokered convention–I see how it’s unlikely, but only because of the probability that someone, most likely Romney, will acquire a majority of the delegates by Auguest, or at least get close enough to get more than half with a promise or two. But if no one is very close to half, and vague promises aren’t satisfying to anyone, then a brokered convention is what you’ll get: a new solution to “No Acceptable Candidates” will be to float some “new” names after a few ballots without a candidate. Christie could look good in that context. Jeb Bush could save the GOP. Hell, they could all rally around Sarah Palin. Any choice that 51% of the delegates, now freed of their commitment to a specific candidate, could accept as a compromise is far better than a party being unable to choose any candidate at all.
The Secretary of State exists to promulgate the President’s foreign policy. One independent move and its Former Secretary of State the next day.
I suppose we have to accept this, though. If you can back Ron Paul, then any conceivable outcome becomes possible. Start with crazy and the rest is crazy.
Speaking of crazy: that’s what a brokered convention would be. Not just the four days of the convention itself, but the four weeks leading up to the convention would be 24 hour craziness as all the cable channels went wild. Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston could come back to life and announce their marriage and it wouldn’t break through. The Republican National Committee would literally start assassinating people to prevent one from happening. They want a nice orchestrated four-day infomercial. That’s what they will get.
Trouble with your premise is that the leadership of the Republican Party, your father’s Oldsmobile, have lost control. Their devil’s bargain with the Troglodyte Right has come unraveled.
Now that is one ray of dark sunshine: if Romney’s money cannot win him the nomination, if he cannot simply buy victory. But we both know that the leadership is desperately looking for a way out.
Under the circumstances of the past, Romney is the perfect candidate, a man carved from frozen mayonnaise. And willing to be just as moderate, or just as radical, as you want, whenever you want it. But the base wants raw meat and blood, they have the energy and the enthusiasm. And it turns out, energy and enthusiasm trumps money! Far out!
There’s a small, but finite chance that Romney’s plane crashes on the way to some event or another. I think that might precipitate a brokered convention. Nothing involving people is ever a sure thing.
We live in interesting times. Sure, the prospect of Santorum actually winning causes my Nixon to slam shut so tight I’m not sure I can take an Agnew. And its not that sheer money cannot win, its far too early for that! Tantalizing prospect, though, I think you will admit.
But what is the actual probability? 1%? 0.1%? 0.00001%? Who can calculate it? What’s the point of doing so? It’s never happened before so there’s not any precedent to fall back on. For the purposes of this kind of discussion, the only meaningful way to state the possibility is 0%. A brokered convention is a delusion by bored reporters, disgruntled voters, and spectacle seekers. It has no reality unless something happens that cannot be predicted in any way. Why bother?