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A Brokered Convention in 2008?
November 26th, 2007 at 08:51am Mark Noonan
I’ve long thought that it might come out that way, and now Michael Barone raises the possibility, at least as far as the GOP contest goes:
As for Republicans, the number of combinations of plausible results in the early contests rises into the dozens. Mike Huckabee is coming on strong in Iowa, threatening Mitt Romney’s lead; John McCain is roughly tied with Rudy Giuliani for second place in New Hampshire; Giuliani and Romney are leading in Michigan; Fred Thompson seems to be narrowly behind Romney and Giuliani in South Carolina. These five candidates all have scenarios of varying plausibility showing them winning the nomination. The key question is whether the winners of Iowa and New Hampshire will get a bounce in the next contests. Bounces have been common, but not universal (Edwards 2004 and George W. Bush 2000 in New Hampshire). Will voters in Michigan and Florida be willing to subcontract their judgment to the voters in Iowa and New Hampshire who have seen more of the candidates? No one knows for sure.
Some Republican insiders are talking about the possibility that none of the candidates gets a majority of delegates. Presumably the nomination will be brokered, probably long before the convention, but not before the party goes through considerable turmoil. I think that’s possible; unlikely things can happen (Florida 2000).
Remember, when delegates are selected through the primary process, they are only committed to vote for their candidate on the first ballot. Certainly, someone who goes to the convention for, say, Romney will likely keep voting for Romney…unless and until it becomes clear that their guy won’t make it…then it becomes time to say, “ok, I’ll back your guy, instead, provided that…”; he gets to be VP, or SecState, or what have you. A lot of political dealmaking will go on behind closed doors if no candidate gets a first ballot majority. This sort of thing hasn’t happened at all for more than 50 years - and we have to go back nearly a century to find genuinely contested major party conventions. The modern primary system was designed to take decision making on nominees out of the hands of party bosses and place it in the hands of the people - and it worked, except that it has now turned our nominating process into a political circus where money becomes ever more powerful…and it just might be breaking down as a large number of candidates are able to raise sufficient funds to be competitive for an extended period of time in the nominating process.
Barone doesn’t get into the prospect of the Democrats having a brokered convention - the conventional wisdom being that if Hillary wins IA and NH, she’ll then roll irresistibly on to the nomination. Of couse, I’m not so sure Hillary will win IA - in fact, I’m becoming just a little bit convinced that she’s going to lose there, and perhaps lose rather badly (coming in third, or worse). After such an event, even a win in NH (unless by a clear majority over the other candidates, combined) might not be convincing enough to the party bosses to rally ’round her…and certainly wouldn’t be convincing enough for the leftwing ‘netroots (who don’t really like her all that much) to surrender their fight for a purely leftwing candidacy in 2008. And even if Hillary does win in both places, I’m still not 100% convinced that this will sew it up for her - might sew it up as far as the party bosses are concerned, but won’t sew it up as far as the kook left base of the party is concerned.
In short, there are strong prospects of both parties failing to secure a first-ballot nominee in the primary/caucus process. This can get really rather messy - several times in the past, when a convention was contested, part of the party bolted and formed a third party (Democrats in 1860, Republicans in 1912, eg). Given the poisoned political atmosphere, the stong passions on both sides, it may become impossible for the United States to get a President in 2008 elected by a majority of the people…depending on which way the political cookie crumbles, 40% might be sufficient to elect the next President. All I can say is: keep yourself braced for a wild political ride next year.
Entry Filed under: Campaign 2008, Democrats, Republicans
30 Comments
1. kourageThekowardlyDog &ra&hellip | November 26th, 2007 at 9:04 am
[…] Check it out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today.Here’s a quick excerptAs for Republicans, the number of combinations of plausible results in the early contests rises into the dozens. Mike Huckabee is coming on strong in Iowa, threatening Mitt Romney’s lead; John McCain is roughly tied with Rudy Giuliani … […]
2. neocon | November 26th, 2007 at 9:10 am
Completely OT,
But I couldn’t resist. Remember all the doomsayers in the MSM claiming this could be the bleakest shopping weekend in awhile because of our collapsing economy? Well…….
Retailers Have a Strong Start to the Holiday Shopping Season, but Shoppers Need to Keep Buying
NEW YORK (AP) — The nation’s shoppers set aside worries about higher gas prices and a slumping housing market and proved their resilience over the Thanksgiving weekend,…”This was a really good start. … There seemed to be a lot of pent-up demand,” said Bill Martin, co-founder of ShopperTrak RCT Corp., which tracks total sales at more than 50,000 retail outlets. ShopperTrak reported late Sunday that sales on Friday and Saturday combined rose 7.2 percent to $16.4 billion from the same two-day period a year ago
I wonder if liberals ever tire of stupidty and pessimism.
3. Repulicans Presidential E&hellip | November 26th, 2007 at 9:13 am
[…] Mark Noonan placed an interesting blog post on A Brokered Convention in 2008?Here’s a brief overview […]
4. A Brokered Convention in &hellip | November 26th, 2007 at 9:39 am
[…] post by Mark Noonan This was written by . Posted on Monday, November 26, 2007, at 7:51 am. Filed under […]
5. Retired Spook | November 26th, 2007 at 9:39 am
The problem, I think, in the GOP is highlighted by a presidential preference quiz I took several weeks ago. If I were to have listed the candidates in order of personal preference prior to taking the quiz, I would have said (1) Huckabee (2) Hunter (3) Thompson (4) Romney (5) Giuliani (6) McCain (7) Tancredo (8) Paul
The results of the quiz, based on the candidates’ stands on key issues and the weighting (very important, somewhat important, neutral, not very important, not important at all) that I gave each issue, the results came out (1) McCain, (2) Hunter (3) Tancredo, (4) Thompson, Romney, Huckabee (tied), (7) Paul (8) Giuliani. Interestingly, the top Democrat, Biden was tied with the bottom Republican, Giuliani. (the quiz ranked all candidates of both parties). The only thing that didn’t surprise me was that, except for the Giuliani/Biden tie, ALL the Democrats ranked below all the Republicans.
I wish I would have saved the results other than the placing of the candidates, because the quiz also listed the issues on which my position agreed and disagreed with each candidate. I have no idea whether or not this quiz was accurate. And, of course, this quiz didn’t take into account such things as likability, experience, scandal (or lack therof), perceived integrity, flip-flops on issues, etc..
Has anyone else taken such a preference quiz, and, if so, did the results surprise you?
6. A Brokered Convention in &hellip | November 26th, 2007 at 9:42 am
[…] the original post here: A Brokered Convention in 2008? […]
7. Casper | November 26th, 2007 at 9:51 am
Mark,
I agree that the race is not as cut and dried as some of the talking heads have predicted. I have a feeling that the Hillary Express is about to go off the rails.
8. lenny | November 26th, 2007 at 9:53 am
hey neo
you and the markasumption one are excitable boys
agreed….the sales figures are encouraging
but don’t crazy just yet
black friday is only 5% of total holiday sales
and more importantly
it’s much more than total sales revenue
it’s margin……..that’s the critical piece
keep fingers crossed
9. A Brokered Convention in &hellip | November 26th, 2007 at 10:03 am
[…] Original post by onthewriteside […]
10. Almiranta | November 26th, 2007 at 10:10 am
You’re right, lenny, the whole thing could blow up any minute.
And remember, even if the numbers DO hold, there is plenty to fret about. We could have a freak NE hurricane that could wipe out Wall Street. Discovery Channel had a story about a volcano on an island which, if it were to blow in a certain way, and the face of the mountain were to slide off into the ocean in a certain way, the tsunami would/could wipe out the whole East Coast.
I’m sure the sky is falling somewhere.
And in the meantime, the Dow fluctuates all day long, so you can gloat over every downturn and blip.
…………………………………………….
Spook, I would like to find that quiz you took. My main rant for years has been the oddity of people voting against their own best interests and real philosophical beliefs due to emotion, and have challenged many radical Libs to answer questions which were probably very similar to those you answered, to determine their actual political stance on ISSUES rather than on emotion.
The one thing I would have to factor in, and you agree that this quiz did not address it, is the personal knowledge of the candidates. For example, while I can accept a man in the White House who was unfaithful to his wife (what a concept!!!) I would have trouble with McCain because I have found him to be wildly unpredictable. His ignorance of the Constitution, as shown by McCain-Feingold, is alarming.
I’m curious about which Huckabee stances did not agree with yours, as what I have heard from him has been pretty impressive.
11. OhioOrrin | November 26th, 2007 at 10:20 am
not that I’m a big clinton fan but please remember he helped broker the ceasefire in northern ireland which eventually lead to a peace treaty.
12. OhioOrrin | November 26th, 2007 at 10:23 am
my bad. I posted the above to the incorrect thread. please delete.
13. neocon | November 26th, 2007 at 10:38 am
lenny,
Thank you for your continued pessimism. For a minute there I felt pretty good about things, but thanks to a liberal, my day will now be miserable again.
Whew, close call.
14. Joe | November 26th, 2007 at 11:32 am
Here is the quiz…
http://www.MyElectionChoices.com
15. lenny | November 26th, 2007 at 11:35 am
neo
nice retort
but i’m not a liberal….i’m a realist
so please don’t pigeonhole me
i can appreciate your optimism
but even the retailers are nervous
as i said i’m cautiously optimistic
i’ll close this exchange with two quotes
first….
‘the pessimist complains about the wind, the optimistic expects it to change, the realist adjusts the sails’ arthur ward (1921-1994)
and secondly…this one is posted on a retail trade site today…..
“I really can’t afford this TV—I’ll be making monthly payments on my credit card until this time next year. But it’s the holidays. You do what you have to do.” —Sawmon Jahagiri, shopping in the wee hours of the morning at an Orange County Fry’s Electronics on Black Friday.
16. Retired Spook | November 26th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
I would have trouble with McCain because I have found him to be wildly unpredictable. His ignorance of the Constitution, as shown by McCain-Feingold, is alarming.
Almiranta, CFR is one of the two reasons I rated McCain so far down the list prior to taking the quiz. The other reasons were that he opposed Bush’s tax cuts and favored amnesty for illegals (although public opinion appears to have caused him to modify that latter stance to border security first — to use your phrase: “what a concept”). I must have agreed with McCain on EVERY other issue for him to come out first, but, IMO, CFR and opposing tax cuts disqualifies McCain from leading this nation, regardless of how he stands on other issues. Also, as you note, he’s just so unpredictable.
Joe, the quiz you linked to is not the one I took, and I suspect there are a number of them available. I’ll try yours and see how it compares.
17. Joe | November 26th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
Sounds good Spook. I had seen the one I referred to mentioned on Blogs for Bush a few months back. If you find your quiz, please send it along.
I just re-took the quiz since last time I didn’t spend much time with it.
I am glad to see that who I am voting for in the primary was actually the candidate I had the most matches with. Bill Richardson.
Not surprisingly, the least matches of Dems were for Clinton, Kucinich Gravel and Biden. Not a big fan of any of those 3.
My most matches were Richardson, Dodd and Obama/Edwards(tie) in that order.
I was very surprised I had agreed with 2 of Brownback’s statements (I know he isn’t in the race anymore).
18. Retired Spook | November 26th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Joe,
I got through 3 issues (out of about 10 that I checked off) and gave up. Unless you’re a one or two issue votor, that quiz could take all day. The one I took previously was considerably less complicated and only took about 5 minutes. I’ll keep trying to find out who it was that sent me the link and see if they still have it.
19. Joe | November 26th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
I like the sounds of your quiz better and I agree that could have taken all day. I only select 5 issues and went with that.
20. neocon | November 26th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
lenny,
If you were a realist, you would acknowledge the increase in sales as completely opposed to what the MSM and many liberals predicted.
You not only didn’t do that but you spun the news to fit with your myopic, agenda driven viewpoint.
“retailers are nervous”
“I will be making credit card payments”
“Margins are the key”
Those same things could have been, and probably were said about EVERY Christmas season gong back decades.
You’re not realist, you’re a liberal. Sorry.
21. lenny | November 26th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
neo
ironically
i never looked at the increase in sales as completely opposed to what the msm or liberals predicted
call me dumb…despite markie marks posting title
technically i’m just a successful and results driven business person
who always hopes for the best and plans for the worst…..always ready to adjust
because sh*t happens all the time
yknow…investors, boards, shareholders like you to do that once in a while
not sure you’re in that world….but if so you might understand where i’m coming from
and not just label me a ‘myopic, agenda driven liberal’
funny….you could probably substitute ‘conservative’ after those words too! ha
thanks for the banter…i gotta go back to work
22. Ricorun | November 26th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
I took the quiz Joe mentioned a few months ago. And yes, it took a long time to complete. I don’t remember the results in detail, but it did provoke me to learn more about both Mike Huckabee and Bill Richardson. I’ve taken other quizes, too. And what I’ve found is that the results weren’t very consistent. Different quizzes stress different things in different ways. Joe’s quiz is built around specific quotes that different politicians have made at one time or another. That’s fine as far as it goes. But I suppose the biggest knock on it is that if you really look at it, not all of the candidates are equally represented — there are more quotes from some candidates than others. And it’s not at all clear to me that the quotes selected are the best examples of the person’s true position.
Likewise, in most quizzes there’s nothing about experience, trustworthiness, communication skills, or other intangibles that weigh heavily on most people’s votes. But I think they might help to suggest that maybe you should pay more attention to one or another candidate than you might have before. I think that’s the value of those quizes. I wouldn’t rely on them to ultimately pick a candidate for you.
More on topic… While this is indeed an unusual year — for one thing, it is the first time in decades since a sitting or former president or vice president will not be on the ticket for either side. Since 1952, isn’t it? Anyway, I think it’s way too early to tell whether one or the other convention is going to be brokered. Up to now the polls have been primarily driven by the “conventional wisdom”. Only recently have the actual people started to tune in. But already we’ve seen some big swings, both in state-focused and national polls. And it will probably continue. I suspect the landscape a couple of months from now will look completely different than it does today.
23. lenny | November 26th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
neo
can’t help it..one last blurb
i guess it doesn’t matter how good retail is
and wall street is just a bunch of myopic, agenda types like me
from today’s wsj’s alert….Dogged by credit woes and recession fears, the Dow industrials tumbled roughly 240 points, more than erasing their bounce on Black Friday. The financial sector was particularly hard-hit, with Citigroup sinking 6% to less than $30 a share and Goldman Sachs off 4%. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note plunged to a two-year low.
ok…i promise to stop now
24. neocon | November 26th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
lenny,
I am shocked, you found some more negativity in the market.
How do you do it?
25. Retired Spook | November 26th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
there are more quotes from some candidates than others. And it’s not at all clear to me that the quotes selected are the best examples of the person’s true position.
Rico, after going through 3 issues and looking at the results, I agree with your assessment. BTW, my leader, after 3 issues was Brownback, and he isn’t even in the race anymore.
There really is no substitute for listening to the candidates, reading about them, looking at their records, and just generally getting to know as much about them as possible. By the time of the primary in Indiana the first Tuesday of May, the nominees will probably be decided, although, as Mark notes in this post, that isn’t even guaranteed. It would be interesting to see a brokered convention on either or both sides. What a great civics lesson for everyone younger than 60 or 70.
26. Retired Spook | November 26th, 2007 at 6:04 pm
Lenny, the fact is that, if you look at the stock market on the basis of what it does in the short term, you’d probably never invest, because you’d always be waiting for the most opportune time.
Throughout the 80’s and early 90’s I made the mistake of trusting my investments to so-called professionals, and my rate of return was terrible. In 1997 I decided to take matters into my own hands before I got too old for it to matter. I spent a great deal of time studying markets, both foreign and domestic, and, since then I’ve averaged over 13% annual return. Over the course of those 10 years there were lots of 240 point drops which were offset by lots of 240 point gains.
27. CallMeTeach | November 26th, 2007 at 7:03 pm
The reason this whole topic of “who will gather the most votes” is up in the air is because, honestly all but one of the GOP candidates is a carbon copy of the other. I have watched every GOP debate so far and it’s like they are all looking at the same que cards. Sure you can point at their pasts and point out differences but at this moment when on stage, they mostly say the same thing. The ones that are vastly different (Huckabee and Paul) are constantly being bombasted because they aren’t neoconservatives. They are however very traditionally conservative and very much about preserving the constitution. I can’t wait for the debate tomorrow to see how well all of the candidates handle real questions from real people.
28. neocon | November 26th, 2007 at 7:21 pm
Real questions from real people?
You mean like the question “what do you prefer, diamonds or pearls?”
Personally, I can’t wait for the real answers from real people.
29. lenny | November 26th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
whoa is me
my nabobiness of negativity
spook
i think i understand the short and long of the mkt
and agree with your mistrust of brokers
but
whether we like it or not
they drive it and we have to exploit or adjust
30. Dasein Libsbane | November 27th, 2007 at 11:09 am
bombasted?
Not an English teacher, I assume.
Huckabee is a populist, and Paul is a loon.
Spook, the only thing about the market that surprised me recently was the drop in 10 year Treasury. You’re right, a few hundred points one way or another isn’t as volatile as a 40 or 50 point swing in the 80’s.
Regarding the quiz; you can’t decide based on bullet-point quotes; PIAPS says all the things she needs to in the right arena, she just doesn’t mean it.