The Chances of a Brokered GOP Convention
December 11th, 2007 at 03:36pm Mark Noonan
Are excellently covered by David Freddoso over at NRO. I highly recommend reading it, because I’m about 40% sure we’re going to have a brokered GOP convention. I’m also about 40% sure we’re going to have a brokered Democratic convention - something no one looks for at this point because Hillary is still considered the prohibitive front runner.
The key to all this, as Freddoso points out, is whether or not anyone in either party has a series of smashing victories in the early going. Such a series of victories would shift money and support over to the victor and convince the also-rans that its time to toss in the towell and hope for a Cabinet seat. But if no one really runs the boards in the early going, then the money won’t know where to go, no one will have momentum and the people coming in third and fourth will have no incentive to leave the race - at a brokered convention, its possible that someone who didn’t even run to obtain the nomination (a very unlikely scenario, but in the realm of possibility); and it is also possible that a person who consistently came in third or fourth in the primaries/caucuses could emerge as the compromise candidate between supporters of the two top dogs.
As for why I think the Democrats might be headed to a brokered convention - because I’ve never thought of Hillary as the unstoppable juggernaught she’s been made out to be. There’s nothing there other than an MSM-crafted feminist image coupled with a crude appeal to gender politics. In fact, all three of the leading Democrats (Hillary, Obama, Edwards) are pretty much political ciphers - none of them has anything to point to as an accomplishment other than being elected to the Senate. None of them, as far as can be determined, has ever had to take responsbility for an executive decision. Its got to drive serious men like Biden, Dodd and Richardson nuts that such are the leaders while they are the also-rans (keeping in mind that I have all sorts of problems with all three men, but at least they have real accomplishments in their lives).
In the normal course of events, all three of these men would be making their gracious endorsement speeches shortly after New Hampshire - or after South Carolina, at the latest. But if Hillary proves beatable (which I think she will in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina), then there will be no reason for the second tier to back off - and the Democratic delegate selection process is even more screwed up than the GOP process, which opens up all sorts of possibilities for second tier candidates to arrive at an open convention with large blocs of delegates to base a bid for the nomination on, or use as a bargaining chip for particular projects and issues.
As I’ve said before - buckle up and get ready for a wild political ride in 2008. No one out there really knows what is going on, and this may very well end up the most interesting election campaign since 1860.
Entry Filed under: Campaign 2008, Democrats, Republicans
4 Comments
1. Casper | December 11th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
Mark,
Interesting article. I hope you are correct. I would pick just about anyone over either Giuliani or Hillary.
2. Mark Noonan | December 11th, 2007 at 10:21 pm
Casper,
We’ll see - for a political junkie like me, it would be pure heaven, of course…
3. Cities and Towns of Vermo&hellip | December 12th, 2007 at 8:40 am
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4. Albert Franklin | December 12th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
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