Following the polls after last week’s debate, the RNC has quietly decided to run Paul Ryan and Nikki Haley.
None of the more or less corporate candiates, Marco Rubio, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush or Ohio Gov. John Kasich, have enough support to take the nomination and become a credible candidate against Mrs. Clinton.
Party kingmaker, Haley Barbour of Mississippi, said “Let’s get through Iowa, let’s get through New Hampshire. Let’s give somebody a chance to win this thing before we try to figure out whether we’re going to have a contested convention or not.” Barbour, a close friend of Paul Ryan, knows that a divided convention will not, and can not, happen.
The last time there was a truly brokered convention was before today’s world of 24/7 news and big media. People still read newspapers in 1952 when Democrats drafted Adlai Stevenson, who won the party’s futile nomination on the third ballot.
The last time a Republican convention opened without a clear nominee was 1976. Then, Gerald Ford led in delegates but lacked a majority coming into the convention. Ford beat back a challenge from Ronald Reagan and eked out the nomination on the first vote. The result was the United States presidential election of 1976 . The winner was Jimmy Carter.
“Certainly, management of the committee has been working on the eventuality, because we’d be wrong not to,” said Bruce Ash, chairman of the RNC’s rules committee. “We don’t know, or we don’t think there’s going to be a contested convention, but if there is, obviously everybody needs to know what all those logistics are going to look like.”
For one thing, there is even the problem of who would pay for an extended convention? Delegates are not rich … what happens if the convention goes on for five or six days? Who pays their costs? Can the party afford to keep the facilities for another two or three days? How could they manage the media for that time?
“I never thought we’d deal with this,” party leader Duprey said. “The best way to make sure we don’t have some messy fight is if all the campaigns understand the rules and all the members of the RNC understand how this would play out going forward.” What Mr. Duprey really knows is that the result would be a murderous cacophony … imagine Trump, Cruz and whatever corporate candidate the GOP fathers come to?
Added South Carolina GOP chairman Matt Moore: “The story of this election cycle has been ‘expect the unexpected.’ So we’re getting ahead of it and preparing for every single scenario at the national convention. I don’t think it’s likely, but it’s certainly possible. And you always plan for things that are possible.”
To win the nomination outright, a successful candidate needs to secure more than half of all available delegates in the state-by-state primary contests leading up to the convention. Without that … there will be no candidate coffers to pay for all the media costs and the big media will be desperate to make the fight the real story. TRUMP.
In the GOP field this year, Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz have the edge in the most recent preference polls, much to the dismay of many party leaders who know that neither man is electable in a general election or, if elected, wouldn’t govern in the interests of the corporate powers that comprise the core of the GOP.
Interesting. This is a lot more plausible than any ticket involving the frontrunners. The GOP is staring at a potential disaster. Will they override their crazed voter base to save the party? Stay tuned, and expect a run on popcorn supplies.
The challenge they will have is how to make this look like a democratic act rather than the behavior of an oligarchy. Onr ideeas is “discover” a fatal flaw in Trump AFTER he beats Rubio n Fla. Thsi assumes Cruze Crumbles.