A brokered convention occurs when no candidate gets enough of the delegates to secure the nomination on the first vote tally. After that, delegates can be given up to other candidates, shifting the balance....
[A] new Republican National Committee rule that requires any GOP nominee win a majority of delegates from eight different states....(Strange comma placement in that last sentence.)
It had "nothing, zero, nada to do with Trump except he may be one of the candidates standing at the end," said the source. "It was not aimed at anyone."
Sean Spicer, RNC chief strategist and communications director, downplayed the significance of the dinner on Friday. "It was a dinner where the subject was how the delegate selection process works.... At the end of that dinner, there were a lot of questions asked.... It's great cocktail conversation... This is really, to be honest, with you quite silly."
Do you know "Who were the last two presidential nominees lacking a majority at the end of the first roll call at their party conventions?" The reason that question asks for two is that it happened in the same year. It was longer ago than 1976, but in 1976, Ronald Reagan got pretty close to getting a brokered convention. (Give up? It was 1952.)
[N]omination by way of a contested convention was a respectable strategy from the 1830s, when conventions became the standard way of nominating candidates, until at least the 1960s. Democratic front runners Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932 and John Kennedy in 1960 knew that their support might dissipate unless they won quickly. Their chief rivals, Al Smith and Lyndon Johnson respectively, hoped that it would. In both cases effective floor managers kept wavering delegates in line. Kennedy won on the first ballot but not until the alphabetical roll call reached Wyoming; Roosevelt won on the fourth when the Democrats still required a two-thirds majority....That was, obviously, written in 2012. The odd thing this year is that GOP insiders seem to be looking at a convention where the dominant candidate would be challenged by insurgents making a "vivid case" for... moderation.
[C]onventions were, are, and probably should be about more than nominations. Senator Richard Russell, the genteel face of racial segregation, accumulated large numbers of delegates at the 1948 and 1952 Democratic conventions in order to demonstrate the power of the white South. Jesse Jackson used the same tactic on behalf of racial equality and a "rainbow coalition" in 1984 and 1988. Whether or not Senator Edward Kennedy actually thought he could shake loose Jimmy Carter's delegates at an "open convention" in 1980, he wanted to make a vivid case for liberalism....
No one can predict whether or not the Republicans will have a contested convention this year, either because Mitt Romney's more conservative rivals might have a chance in combination to deny him the nomination or because they want to make a vivid ideological statement...
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Nothing annoys me more, really, in a Times article about politics than an unnamed source.
If I were Editor, I'd ban them.
If you have some speculation/opinion about Politics, have the gonads to put your name to it.
(I'm not unaware of the irony of me posting this under a pseudonym ;) )
"a convention where the dominant candidate would be challenged by insurgents making a "vivid case" for... moderation." In other words, a candidate more acceptable to FL, OH, and VA than moderate Mitt.
"It's great cocktail conversation..."
The problem with the Republican Party, right there.
For the Republican leaders it is all conversation at cocktail parties, inconsequential chatter divorced from any relevance of why people would vote for them in the first place.
We, The People, are -- in the end -- cocktail chatter for our Betters.
Bring back the Fucking Guillotine.
I am Laslo.
It could happen but more Muslim attacks will make the matter moot.
Isn't there a legal problem here?
Suppose Trump comes in to the convention with 49% of the tally, and loses on the first ballot. Everyone lights a cigar and says "we'll go with Romney", who wins on the second ballot with 75%.
How does that work with the various election laws in states and with the feds?
How can someone rise to the nomination on the whim of a bunch of slippery individuals who go to the primary and decide they want someone else? How does that person get on the ballot, or lay claim to being the nominee of a large party?
No doubt there are many undergrad, grad, and professional papers and books on these questions. My vote for a nominee should be a sign of my tiny piece of the party's support for that nominee. You can't just say the whole party decided to change partners on a whim.
the possibility of the brokered convention, which hasn't happened in decades
But which pundits insist on talking about every fucking cycle as if it were a real possibility.
If no one gets a majority on the first ballot, and someone other than the top four now (Trump, Cruz, Rubio, Carson) ends up with the nomination, particularly an establishment hack who did not go through the primaries (Romney), then will be the final nail and kills the Republican Party on a national level. Hello President Hillary. Hello ISIS attacks everywhere.
"Isn't there a legal problem here?"
It was the norm until the last few years. Harding was elected after ten ballots and was given little chance against favorites early in the convention.
I think the main answer to my naive questions above is generally that in caucuses and primaries, voters choose electors, not presidential candidates, and the electors can do whatever they want. "Whoops! You hired us! We're going with Carrot Top, losers!"
I seem to recall National Conventions in the rough-and-umble days were one of those occasions when it really mattered who wielded the gavel.
Republicans turned out huge in 2014 to give the GOP both houses. They've done nothing. Chief Justice Roberts betrayed the base on Obamacare. The base is pissed. Screw'em all. If they cheat primary voters out of their selection, Trump or not, they will have proven they are no better than the Dems and the media. Then it's time for a revolution in the party. I'm not even impressed with Paul Ryan anymore.
Republicans turned out huge in 2014 to give the GOP both houses. They've done nothing. Chief Justice Roberts betrayed the base on Obamacare. The base is pissed. Screw'em all. If they cheat primary voters out of their selection, Trump or not, they will have proven they are no better than the Dems and the media. Then it's time for a revolution in the party. I'm not even impressed with Paul Ryan anymore.
Isn't "brokered convention" a loaded term? Our hostess used the neutral form "contested convention," and I think the more polite term used to be "open convention." The term "brokered" suggests that powerful people will manage exchanges of favors to decide the nomination. While that certainly can happen, it isn't an automatic consequence of a convention going to a second ballot. Delegates switch from confirmed losers to more likely candidates, and then, if that isn't enough, some deals are direct and open. I would only use the term "brokered convention" if I wanted to cast aspersions in advance.
In this age, I just don't see a brokered convention being a real possibility. The Republican field will be down to two truly viable candidates at most by the end of February. Nothing puts an end to your ability to raise money quicker than being unable to eek out at least second place in two or more primaries in a row.
Walter S. is quite correct. This has always been a possibility in a race where no one candidate arrives at the convention with the requisite number of delegates to secure the nomination on the first ballot. My preference would be to have a clear winner (and no – having a plurality but not a majority does not make a candidate the “winner”) before the convention. As such I supporter Governor Walker’s call for the other candidates who have not gained sufficient traction to have a realistic path to victory to drop out before the caucuses and throw their support behind one of the others.
Big mistake. Huge mistake. They are walking on the penumbra's edge.
I will say this again - if the establishment expects to get one of theirs as the nominee through a brokered convention, they can kiss winning Presidential elections goodbye for a bit. Nothing is going to piss off the more zealous backers of the top candidates faster than the establishment Republican elite substituting one of theirs as the nominee at the last moment. Don't like Trump? Run one of yours. Oh, wait, you have, and he (JEB) is floundering, despite spending more money than anyone else, because he can't connect with the base. Sneaking the nomination to Romney, or maybe JEB, would blow up the party, and guarantee a Hillary win.
All of this is nonsense. There will be a candidate who will win the sufficient number of primaries. Who will be the winner I don't know but one will win. In the unlikely event there isn't one winner and if Trump is one of the almost but not quite there-yet candidates either he will be a King Maker or if he is the one with the highest delegate count he will make a deal with the other candidate. He won't go third party. He gains nothing but grief on many levels were he to do so.
Althouse wrote: (Give up? It was 1952.)
The populist upstart, Eisenhower, won that convention. Here are some musings: link
I agree with cubanbob. All of these scenarios belong in the reject pile at Warner Brothers. The people dreaming up these scenarios need to go back to selling mutual funds. It's much more likely that Trump can "stop" Romney than Romney can stop Trump. The idea that Romney can win the Presidency has already been settled; he can't. It reminds me of the news shows of the 1960's with reporters dating back to the 1930's blabbering about "how it was done in the old days." I found it ironic watching those men talking on television as if television hadn't changed everything at that point. Nobody is fooled by today's Republican insiders. Romney doesn't bring them anything that Jeb Bush lacks. Its not just that they tried to make corrupt bargains with Obama, it's that "compassionate conservatism" is just as stupid and useless as the Democrats "Big Government" ideas, e.g. the story cited on this web site of the pooping comfort horse in First Class.
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