The Long Lost Brokered Convention

Its something that political junkies love talking about.  It engenders all sorts of Aaron Sorkin-esque romanticism about the political process.  It was discussed in 2008, when a handful of journalists and columnists freaked the fuck out when Obama and Hillary had taken the primary into the depths of February (in case you forgot, it didn't stop there) and started talking about a brokered convention with Al Gore positioned as the savior to be.

Well, now its the Republicans turn, but instead of machinations by editorialists trying to fill their contractual writing obligation by positing ridiculous theories, its now the Republican base who are looking at their deeply flawed candidates with a sense of resignation and remorse. 

I am part of the base that will do everything I can to defeat Mitt Romney because I believe he will be a disastrous nominee who will cost us the House, the Senate, the White House, and consequently the Supreme Court. There are Mitt supporters who feel the same about Newt, Rick Santorum, and Ron Paul. So maybe we ought to all find someone who we all kind of like instead of heading to Tampa in August all licking wounds and pretending to rally to the man the voters chose between the evils of two real lessers.

Of course, there are a few hiccups to this solution to your problem.

1) The GOP rules don't allow for the same level of "super-delegates" that the Democratic party had. From what I can tell, there are generally about three automatically "unbound" delegates per state. Now, this isn't hard and fast, there are some states where all the delegates are unbound, some with binding rules that only require for 1st ballot unity, some that require multiple ballots, some that are "moral" but not legal, and all sorts of other various measurements for judging how loyal someone is. So, based on my calculations, there are roughly 1768 "bound" delegates to 587 "unbound". Is that enough to trigger a brokered convention with an outsider candidates? I suppose, but its unlikely because...

2) Neither Romney or Gingrich are just going to give up, nor will their contributors let them. Yeah, its great for Republicans to think they'll set aside personal ambition and years of hard work so that Chris Cristie can waddle his way to the nomination, but really, does anything you've seen so far indicate they have that sense of selflessness? Someone is going to come out of this nomination process with the most votes, whether they matter or not, and the most delegates. That person will fight to make their case as to why they should be the nominee. They may come to an agreement with the runner-up for a VP slot, or they may cut a deal with Ron Paul to add Rand to the ticket and moderate their recklessly dangerous geo-political views. But ultimately...

3) Someone will probably collapse. None of them have the same sort of foundational campaign apparatus or fundraising base that Obama and Hillary did. Newt Gingrich is right now running entirely on the power of his adoring fans who marvel at his brilliance in debates...except, when he falls flat in one, and then he collapses ten points the next day. This sort of volatility makes me very pessimistic about the chances of a competition lasting until August, because sooner or later one of the candidates will make enough of an ass of themselves to allow for the other to gain a permanent momentum. My guess is, based on all available evidence, that person is Newt, especially given the apparent coalescing of the mainstream GOP establishment (Fox News, Drudge, Coulter, etc...) into a rag-tag group of Anybody But Newt. They may not like Mittens Romney Inc, but they sure as shit aren't gonna sit by while Newt auditions to play the part of Walter Mondale in the general election.

Of course, I would love to be wrong here...let the process drag out in a war of bloody attrition where Republicans put the Clinton impeachment and Capitalism "on trial" for the world to see.  Yes, you've dug yourselves into a deep hole with your Reagan revisionism and utter rejection of reality these past 20 or so years.  Now, no candidate with half a brain or know-how can survive the type of rigid purity tests you have created for yourselves. You've become a wholly dysfunctional walking blob of cognitive dissonance in your battle against the secular-humanist-muslim-terrorist-communistic-socialist-liberal-corporate-crony that you see as our President.  You did it all to yourselves.  If you, Erik, don't like the candidates with which you have been presented, look into a mirror and blame yourself.