What if Romney had to drop out?

Hypothetical here. The reason doesn’t matter, dead girl, live boy, coma after a car crash. Romney is out of the race. What then? Newt and Santorum turn on each other? GOP establishment turns to Huntsman?

I think we have a convention situation where the party leadership picks someone. They’re not turning the nomination over to someone whom they feel would be a worse president than Barack Obama.

The closest thing in our history would be Humphrey’s Democratic nomination in 1968. This isn’t a clear parallel because the system has changed so extensively since then, but it’s the closest thing I can think of.

I think a few of the guys who considered running but decided against it would line up some money and supporters and jump in at the last minute, and one of them would get the nomination. Everybody in the race right now is so severely flawed that I don’t think the full party would coalesce behind any of them right away. Maybe Christie would end up winning.

It is such a weird situation now with Romney being the front-runner of some of the least functional presidential candidates I have ever seen.
I don’t mean just as candidates but as president.
This is just embarrassing.

Really, I think they’d go with what they’ve got at this point.

Then we’d all sit back and watch Obama win by one of the largest landslides in US presidential election history.

You want to know the scary part? Rick Santorum would come a lot closer to beating Obama (in the electoral college, anyway) than Walter Mondale came to beating Ronald Reagan.

It is still amazing to me that after all of these YEARS of attacks against Obama, the Republicans are going to lose.

Not partisan. I’m Libertarian as much as anything else.
The current Libertarians are as crazy as the Republicans.
Very strange.

It’s early enough right now that someone else could get in the race and run in primaries. But the structure for both parties is designed that the vast majority of candidates are selected via primary or caucus. If (insert candidate name) had to quit the race AFTER getting enough delegates to win the nomination, you’d end up with a deadlocked convention, multiple ballots and probably a back room deal

You’re thinking of George McGovern in 1972 – only it was the VP nominee who resigned the ticket after the convention. Then the Democratic National Committee met and nominated Sargent Shriver to replace him on the ticket.

No, I’m thinking of 1968 when Humphrey didn’t win a single primary, but was selected anyway after Bobby Kennedy was killed. It’s not an exact parallel because only thirteen states had primaries, but it’s still an example of a nominee being picked when there was no clear voter consensus–largely because a front runner was eliminated.

It may seem like this election season has gone on forever but it’s actually barely begun. Officially, Romney is only one of the people trying for the Republican nomination. If he dropped out, there would still be plenty of other people still in the running. It would be not different than when Pawlenty dropped out back in August.

Realistically, it is possible that some other Republicans might see Romney’s departure as creating either an opportunity or a void and would join the race.

Depending on when he dropped out, wouldn’t they just let the caucus and primary process play itself out and nominate the next highest voter getter?

If it was after Romney won the nomination, party leadership would probably just pick someone

It’s different because Romney is currently seen as the inevitable nominee. If he dropped out today, who would be the front runner? Who would join the race.

I think that a lot of the people behind Romney would go with Newt as the least fringe of the current canidates, while pushing hard for either Christie, or Jeb Bush as a long shot.

If It happened the day before the convention, that would be a whole different question.

The race will be three way between Gingrich, Huntsman, and Santorum.

Numbers
Gingrich-30%
Santorum-30%
Huntsman-30%
Other-10%

Nixon whupped [del]old whats-his-name[/del] McGovern in 1972 by a substantial landslide.
Nixon: 49 states, 520 electoral votes.
McG: 1 state and DC, 17 electoral votes.
ETA: Wikipedia source

Humphrey was likely going to be picked even if Kennedy had survived, though. McCarthy had won more primaries than Kennedy and that didn’t help him get the nomination very much.

I suspect that if Romney dropped out, Santorum and Gingrich would turn on each other with a vengeance, and Santorum would eventually emerge the nominee. I just can’t see any powerful-enough GOP poobahs being able to keep the nomination from him, even if they (correctly) foresaw Ricky Baby getting his clock cleaned by that guy in the White House come November.

Now you know how Dems felt in 2004.