Editors' note: this column is co-authored by Bob MorrisonPosted on 02/23/2012 5:50:51 AM PST by Kaslin
Editors' note: this column is co-authored by Bob Morrison
Politico is a journal subscribed to by none but political junkies, and most of those are liberal. So, when this serious publication starts talking about a brokered convention for the GOP in Tampa next August, beware!
General Dwight D. Eisenhower won a first-ballot nomination in 1952. But there had been a prolonged and bitter floor fight over convention rules. Supporters of conservative Sen. Robert A. Taft (“Mr. Republican”) charged that they had been unfairly denied delegates by Ike’s manipulative Eastern Establishment backers. Had Ike not been the odds-on favorite to sweep the nation after twenty years of Democratic Party rule, the Republicans might well have remained angrier at each other than at their rivals.
Even so, Ike felt he needed to smooth ruffled feathers of the party’s conservative base. So he named then-Sen. Richard M. Nixon of California as his vice presidential running mate. Nixon was offered to conservatives because he had made a name for himself going after Communists in the State Department. He pursued New Dealer Alger Hiss, against whom ex-Communist Whittaker Chambers had so heroically testified. Denying all, Hiss went to prison for perjury.
That Richard Nixon would go on to become president and to betray Taiwan in his famous “Opening Up” of Communist China could not have been imagined in any of those 1952 Republican delegates’ wildest dreams. That he would be forced to resign in the face of impeachment stuns us even now.
The consequences for the nation of that 1952 “brokered” convention have been vast. When Nixon went down in 1974, thousands of “Watergate babies” were swept into office. These very liberal Democrats left a record of radical social and economic policies that still haunts us.
A more recent example of a brokered convention might be the Republican National Convention of 1980, in Detroit . Former Gov. Ronald Reagan had swept the primaries and caucuses that year and his nomination for president, after New Hampshire , was never in doubt.
But who would be his running mate? Reagan was then the oldest man ever nominated for president, so Number Two could easily have become Number One.
With no mystery in the presidential nomination to chew over, the national media—liberal then as now—began their own mini-campaign. With the collusion of former Sec. of State Henry Kissinger, the media began floating the idea of a Reagan-Ford ticket.
Like a beach ball at a rock concert, one reporter after another asked delegates what they thought of pairing the conservative Californian with the moderate ex-President. The idea began to gain real traction, stoked as it was by media boredom, the mother of mischief. Liberals snickered at the thought of the supposedly inexperienced Reagan ceding foreign policy and defense to Ford. It would be, one wag said, “a presidency with training wheels.”
To conservatives, who had denounced Nixon-Kissinger-Ford détente as an immoral concession to Soviet imperialism, the very idea was anathema. Ford had erased a 30-point deficit in the polls in 1976, only to impale himself by saying Eastern Europe was not under Soviet domination during a presidential debate with Jimmy Carter. And this was the man whom the party Establishment and their cohorts in the media hoped would restrain Ronald Reagan.
To prevent being forced into such a misalliance, Gov. Reagan moved and quickly to spike all such talk. He named his defeated rival, former UN Ambassador George H.W. Bush as his running mate.
With that, the fate of the Republican Party and, to an extent, the nation, was sealed for twenty years after Bush 41 won the White House in 1988. Columnist George F. Will spoke for many conservatives after the senior Bush was trounced by Bill Clinton, following a single term: He turned the silk purse of the Reagan coalition into a sow’s ear.
If we think the products of such brokered conventions were good for America , good for good for the conservative cause, or even good for the Republican Party, we should think again. A brokered convention could only leave us all, well, broker.
It looks like the RINO’s are salivating for the brokered convention if Romney falls on Tuesday. That is plenty of reasons to NOT have one.
Whether we beat Obama via the usual way or after a brokered convention, the point is just beat him.
A brokered convention is a difference in procedure, not substance.
Don’t focus on the process. Just focus on defending our country, our Constitution and our values.
Seems like a bit of a leap.
That being said, I don't see Romney or Santorum as nominees who could beat Obama in a straight up general election. A brokered convention would probably just give us Romney and would further weaken his chances. I think Gingrich might have a chance as the nominee (though not a great one).
I don't see a way to make Palin the nominee, but she is about the only good shot we have, I think.
It seems like the GOP will stuff Mitt down our throats no matter what.
Mitch Daniels. Paul Ryan. It might actually be an advantage to have this group snip at odumbo and while he’s preparing for one of them present him with someone new.
I certainly don’t have any illusions that a brokered convention will leave us happy.
Let the people vote and we’ll live or die on our own decision.
Only if we let them. I refuse to
“media boredom, the mother of mischief” a new phrase to me but should be put into the record books.
"Down our throats" if we are lucky- the Silver-templed Suppository has acted like an ATM for the GOP-e and the MSM so extensively that he is going to be clogging up the pipes one way or another.
Mr. niteowl77
It’s hard to get excited about the election. Sure, Gingrich will go down swinging, but really, short of actual leadership showing up, does it all really matter?
Until the crushing dependence on government aid is at least reduced, we’ve still got massive deficits that will collapse soon enough under the weight of made up money. There is no method to tax our way out of it, nor is there a way to grow our way out of it. The singular solution that has a shot at working is cutting benefits, and the only way that happens is really a national campaign - local, county, state, federal races - all aiming to crush this beast.
Fighting over who’s going to be the captain of the Titanic? Debating how much to raise the fees for first and second class passengers to cram more into steerage? The boat’s going to sink - are you really that eager to drag more people to the bottom?
So, as it stands, the current regime now entrenched in the White Hut is doing such a poor job of defending the ideals of the nation, there is no possible way the titular head could be re-elected in 2012.
The opposition, however, is so badly fragmented, and unfocused, they cannot take advantage of all these perfectly obvious vulnerabilities and deficiencies of the regime. They cannot mount even a feeble effort to take back the Oval Office, because as they stare into the eyes of the reptilian monster, they are paralyzed by the inability to enunciate even the mildest criticism.
Mitt Romney is very able to put down competitors in a debate - but only other Republicans.
Rick Santorm has strongly held beliefs, which he shares with a number of people, but as of yet, not nearly a majority.
Newt Gingrich can come up with more ideas and strategies than any three chessmasters in a world tournament, but moves on to the next position before he has even made the move on the previous one.
Ron Paul make huge amounts of good sense about 80% of the time, then he wanders off into some fever swamp on foreign relations and personal freedoms concerning actually trying to keep a civil discourse going, choosing to allow non-involvement to be a guiding principle.
Add up all the positives on the four, take away their negatives, put them in all in one person, and you have the example of what it would take to totally crush this monstrous mutation of what the United States has become.
We should live so long.
This article is gibberish. It addresses only VP candidates; what’s the significance and who cares?
What is the main concern of we, the people?
What is the main concern of they, the candidates?
In my humble, but ALWAYS correct opinion, the two concerns are NOT the same, or even similar.
For example, the most imaginative Candidate, (Newt), introduced himself at last night’s debate as someone who has come up with a new “Energy Plan.” Whoopee-dee-doo!
Way to go Newt! Tell us how we are going to borrow money from prosperous foreign governments, such as China, to “redistribute” to those who pay no F. I. Taxes, so we can be so proud of our surplus Gasoline that we can’t put in our cars that we can no longer afford to own!
Yes! A “Brokered Convention” is exactly what we need to force the eventual nominee to accept the fact that Federal overspending is THE issue.
If we, the voters cannot redress our grievances in a convincing manner during the Primary Campaign, then why should ANY GOP Nominee for President expect our support in November, 2012?
A “Brokered” Convention means that we, the voters have one last chance to force our will upon the stupidity of the GOP and their RINO Nominee.
Yes and no. No, nominating Nixon didn't produce Watergate: Nixon's landslide in 1972 produced Watergate, IMHO, because the defeated media, furious at their repudiation and their Prog/Stalinist candidate McGovern's humiliation by the People, went after Nixon to prove the People wrong. Watergate was really a lashing out at the People for electing Nixon twice, after they had told us not to.
Nixon's "abuses" were the customary prerogatives of Democratic presidents (FDR, LBJ, JFK) confronted by various political challenges. LBJ bugged Barry Goldwater's campaign plane and invented (not Donald Segretti) "dirty tricks", JFK was in bed with the Mob, FDR played rough with everybody he met and was a complete snake.
But Senator Nixon got the VP nod as a reward for delivering the '52 nomination to Eisenhower and the East Coast Establishment. He did this by bringing across California Gov. Earl Warren, whom Eisenhower promptly nominated to the Chief Justiceship -- with all that that entailed!
So, yes, the 1952 convention was a can of worms. It gave us Ike, but it also gave us Earl Warren and an Eisenhower cabinet full of S&P 500 corporate porkchops.
At least Ike stuffed LBJ's plan -- or rather, he delayed it by 11 years -- to open the floodgates of Mexican immigration and introduce a new bloc-voting Democratic constituency (and a nifty non-zero chance of a real civil war).
A brokered or a contested convention will mean Obama’s reelection and the cementing of socialism/fascism throughout the fabric of our once great Republic.
We must choose a candidate soon so as to be about the business of defeating the Zero regime and taking control of the Senate.
—bflr—
Larry Sabato was on Fox News the other day and the subject was the brokered convention. He said that no one that was brought up in a brokered convention ever was election and he gave Dewey as an example. He gave some other examples, but I don’t remember what they were
This has created in some the longing for the brokered convention.
It's a bad idea.
For one thing, it would take a miracle to get an outsider in even if there were a brokered convention. The top two candidates would begin wheeling and dealing and non-smoked filled rooms would be full of bribes, threats and promises begging for votes.
How many votes would have to be taken before an outsider could be nominated? And what are the chances that none of the three main contenders could form some kind of alliance so that one of them could get in.
I'd say the chances are infinitesimal and even more unlikely that somebody’s dream like Sarah Palin would be selected.
It’s amazing how much trouble and expense folks will go to just to - in the end - rally around another false flag.
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