The disorder and confusion in the Republican ranks is getting harder and harder to ignore. It’s at the point now that Establishment Republicans are actually beginning to hope for a contested convention in Tampa so that some alternative to Romney, Santorum, Gingrich, and Paul can be put on the ticket. This is a change from not too long ago when it was hoped that Romney would wrap up the nomination in short order. What’s changed is that the power brokers have realized that Romney is a much worse politician than they thought, and that, so long as he is still being challenged, he can’t wrap up the delegates he needs to be coronated for months. They no longer think they can win with Romney, or even prevent a bloodbath with him.
With concerns over Romney rising after a series of gaffes and polls showing him losing to Rick Santorum in Michigan — a state in which he was born and raised — and with a protracted primary fight ahead, some Republican activists are desperately looking for alternatives. Most concede that it’s late in the game and such a scenario is highly unlikely.
It’s too late for new candidates to gain the ballot access they would need to win the nomination through the ordinary process. So, this is largely a lot of huffing and puffing and panic. Yet, a brokered convention could still happen. It will require Gingrich to win some southern states and for Santorum to continue winning states in the Midwest, while Romney churns along picking up wins here and there.
When people say that Romney needs to win Michigan, they really mean something else. Romney needs to knock one of his opponents out of the race, or at least assure that they aren’t winning any contests. If he loses in Michigan, he’s not going to knock anyone out on Super Tuesday. And that will mean that he may be at serious risk of arriving in Tampa with a mere plurality of the votes. He could conceivably fall behind Santorum in the delegate count, which would probably be fatal to his chances at a contested convention. But he doesn’t want to deal with a contested convention even if he has the delegate lead. I don’t know how many more ways the Republican base can say that they don’t want Romney. They’ve flirted with every other candidate in the race, excepting Hunstman. Now even the Establishment is flirting with other candidates.
If Romney wins Michigan and Arizona, he may keep Gingrich down low enough that he doesn’t win anywhere (including Georgia) on Super Tuesday. That could be enough for him to win the nomination outright, and sooner than many fear. But if he loses in Michigan and Gingrich scores some wins on Super Tuesday, I think Romney will have to shift his strategy to trying to win the nomination at the convention.
The problem is without a solution.
Did nobody of any talent or quality really decide not to run in 2011 because of the “overwhelming electoral capability” of the Obama team? In 2011? Bullshit. That’s part of it, anybody with any sense in their heads respects the skills in the White House, but even more so is the simple reality that these officeholders are afraid of their own constituents.
Republicans are finally afraid of their own base.
Don’t think the Tea Party didn’t make national Republicans queasy. Don’t think that they didn’t notice McCain slumping and sighing at Q&As in 08 as his racist backers called Obama a Muslim and a foreigner (while employing Sarah Palin to call him a terrorist sympathizer instead, that desperate, despicable fuck).
The GOP base is the worst of the worst that this country has to offer. And their leadership fucking knows it. And does nothing to try and fix. Cowards.
Does not the GOP have a large number of its delegates selected by conventions that are not obligated to honor the caucus or primary?
If that is the case, any brokering will occur (like the Democrats did in 2008 with the Michigan primary issue) before the convention. I don’t expect the GOP, of all parties, to deviate from a scripted convention. If it is televised as a brokered convention, it will have been scripted that way to draw viewers.
I recall that after the extra-long “lunch break” at the rules committee, everybody came back and played their (very clearly) scripted parts.
Yes, and interesting that Hillary become Secretary of State, right? She got that job over both Biden and John Kerry. Both of whom wanted it then, and in Kerry’s case want it now.
TarheelDem, do you think it’s at all likely that the republicans might just give up for this year, knowing that all the candidates are losers and that somebody like Jeb would be damaged if they ran this year, and just go with Palin to throw the tea partiers a bone, but really just focus on all the down-ticket races?
They can’t. There’s too much at stake downticket. And the top-of-the-ticket tends to turn out low-information voters. They need some way of upping the passion about the top of the ticket. They’re into diminishing returns bashing President Obama. Problem is they can’t get one group of the coalition passionate without losing one of the other groups.
Just focusing on down-ticket creates a lot of hand-sitters.
They’re stuck. I think Jeb is damaged goods for the next four to six years just because folks remember W.
Republicans being stuck works for me! My biggest worry has been that someone new will come out of the convention AND that the media will fluff that person no matter how bad the person is. I don’t have much faith in low information voters.
This is it, really. They cobbled together a coalition of disparately-motivated voters over decades, but it doesn’t hold up any more, most particularly because enough people–not all–realize at this point that GOP economic ideology, tax cuts only, ate shite over the long-term.
I had wondered if 2008 was the election that finally broke their coalition, and it may still be so. It may be 2012 that does it, 2010 being a blip. I can’t see how the GOP recovers as a national party, but I can’t see it disappearing, either, because they’ve put too many plants in the media.
I see images of an evil Keith Richards getting media transfusions.
And even if they did nominate someone Palin-like at the top, that would fire up the other side to stop them. They would see “Palin 2.0” and then get fired up.
And from a PR point of view, it would be a brilliant move to stir excitement into a dreary election season. They could claim to be the party that sees a problem and takes care of it.
I’m having a hard time not visualizing a Palin and then a Trump contingency waltzing into the convention and seeing all kinds of chaos break out.
At this point the fractures are cutting deeply and there simply isn’t any ONE who can marry this mess. And then of course if the TPartiers arrive with their guns loaded it’ll really get messy.
There’s just no way this isn’t going to bury the down ticket.
People, and I mean the chattering class, is missing something here. When you get Teahadists and Talibangelicals running all the local and state parties, what do you eventually get at the national level? People completely unprepared to run a national campaign. Just look at Rick Perry. When was the last time that clown show had to campaign? When he ran for Ag Commish against Jim Hightower? And it showed. How about these other idiots? Newt Gingrich? Is he the Founding Fathers revenge on us for FUBAR’ing things? And The Frothy One? Oy!!! And don’t get me started on idiots like Mitch Daniels and Chris Christie. Basically, the GOP screwed the pooch, and hard. They had an opportunity to put the W. years behind them and they are squandering the opportunuity. After all, what do you think would happen if the GOP won in November? The Democratic Party would certainly collapse. Why? It’s too long to last here, but I am sure everyone could come up with their reasons. Corporatism and the weak recovery would be at the start, but far from the only things. But the GOP establishment is paying for not corraling in the riff-raff when it could. After all, a GOP establishment that still was in control would have never thrown away the NV and DE Senate elections, especially since winnning those two would have given The Turtle control of the Senate.
I think your analysis is basically right, except for your conception of this anonymous group of powerbrokers out there scheming to do something and feeling frustrated about things. The fact of the matter is that we do know who these powerbrokers are, and they are as much a part of the problem in GOP intramural struggles as anyone else. Romney, Gingrich, Paul, and Santorum are, in fact, four of the powerbrokers, because each has built and financed a credible, national organization. The Kochs the Scaifes, the Bushes, Limbaugh, and the Christian right leaders are also some of the other powerbrokers. Basically anyone able to create a 527 group. And they all are at each others’ throats, which is causing the whole problem for the GOP. Essentially, the GOP has become like the Democratic Party this year, and we’ll still have to see if this helps them or hurts them in the general election.
Okay, someone has been watching too much Thomas the Tank Engine!
WAAAAY too much 🙂
And Percy just beamed….
As the dad of 2 kids who LOVED all things Sodor, I was almost moved to write the definitive exposé on the fat controller’s labor (or should I say labour?) policies and his exploitation of the workers….”Be really useful and don’t cause confusion or delay, or we’ll send you to the scrapyard.” But then they grew out of Thomas and the impulse passed.
Do they even do the “station” segments anymore, or is it just the imaginary world?
It doesn’t really matter if it’s too late for anyone else to get in the race or not. When the best alternative you can come up with is Jeb Bush, you don’t have an alternative.
The rich industrialist in the top hat hates confusion and delay!
Whoops, this was for jqheywood.
I’ve thought for months that, contrary to the pundits, a brokered GOP convention was a good possibility. None of the official candidates is working out for the Reps, and now it’s late for anyone new to get into the primaries. It wouldn’t be hard for the establishment to make a deadlocked convention happen if they despair of any current candidate having a shot at winning.
I think we’ll know the plan well before the convention. Look for the GOP parrots to start blabbing about Christie, Jeb Bush, Daniels, and the rest of the usual retreads.