That Brokered Convention Is Already Underway

The Atlantic Wire ^ | February 29, 2012 | Elspeth Reeve

[2ndDivisionVet]

It's not just journalists and political nerds fantasizing about a brokered convention for Republicans in August. Now, even Sarah Palin is talking about it. The idea is that if none of the candidates is able to win a majority of delegates before the convention in Tampa, the presidential nominee will be picked through rounds of votes after lots of deal-making and alliance-shifting. It took 16 days and 103 votes for Democrats to pick their nominee in 1924, The Washington Post explains; Ronald Reagan threatened to steal some of Gerald Ford's delegates in 1976, but failed. Most Republican officials say there's almost no chance of it happening ("Winning Powerball two days in a row is probably easier than any of these scenarios," a Republican National Committee spokesman told the Post). But don't be too sad, nerds. A version of the brokered convention is happening already.

Just like in the olden times, you've got people switching sides, like when former Ohio Sen. Mike DeWine abandoned Romney for Santorum. More fun is watching the second-tier candidates have formed -- and broken -- alliances to try and block the frontrunner from winning.

Gingrich-Santorum

Back in January, it looked like there was a relationship between Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich. "As the Republican race heads into what may be a fateful week for the contenders, one of the most curious aspects of the competition is the tacit alliance that seems to exist between Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum," Commentary's Jonathan S. Tobin wrote January 9. "The two rivals seemed to be very cozy with each other during the debates this past weekend, with Gingrich frequently praising Santorum and the latter gratefully acknowledging the praise."

But while Gingrich went after Romney, Santorum kept his options open....

[bigbob]

Not a lot of substance here, but for the record, the first person - and only person for quite some time - to mention the possibility of a brokered convention was Sarah Palin.

[RitaOK]

Well that certainly is an event of monumental gravity— to be the first to bring up the most common election year postulation, postulated every cycle by someone, somewhere, and right on time, every time.

But I get your drift. :)

[pepsionice]

Just an observation here, but if you were to write a script for such a event...the team has covered just about every step necessary, over the past year. It wouldn’t surprise me if a decade from now, we end up finding that this was the original plan to start with.