As the author points out, there is always talk of a brokered convention, but it never materializes because both parties know it would damage the eventual nominee.
It is better to cut the backroom deals earlier in the process than after there is no clear winner.
Up until the 1930s/1940s....I think you could still get away with a brokered convention. Since the TV moderators got into the image in the 1960s...I’d say that brokering at a convention is getting to almost an impossible level of secrecy and deal-making to achieve.
However, I would add this for 2020....you basically have four candidates left in the chaos (Sanders, Warren, Mayor Pete, and Biden), and frankly from the rank-and-file normal Democratic voters....probably 50-percent aren’t that excited over any of the four.
If Sanders could explain how he’d turboize the tax program without dissolving 10-million jobs, or Mayor Pete explaining his marginal 5-line resume as making him qualified, or Biden talking for ten minutes and sounding like your crazy Uncle Murray who should be in a retirement home, or Warren telling her woeful period in life and citing her Indian heritage as what kept her on track....there’s just nothing there to correspond to Bill Clinton’s or Barak Obama’s ‘brand-name’ status.
Please do not insult good, honest, hard-working and productive skunk cabbages on this site by comparing them to a Hillary candeadate.
But you’re right. That IS her method. Divide the first vote. Be carried in to her throne on a lounge chair on the shoulders of a slavish media licking her hopes.
But the author points out that due to rule changes, the possibility of a contested convention is increased. If there is no clear front runner after the first four primaries or the field is not narrowed to two after Super Tuesday, the odds of a contested convention go up.
The Dems have no winner take all primaries and it takes winning at least 15% of the vote to earn delegates. It is quite conceivable that there could be 4 Dem candidates still standing after Super Tuesday, i.e., Biden, Bernie, Mayor Pete, and Warren. After Super Tuesday, 40% of the delegates will have been selected based on the results from the 18 primaries.
IMO the race will will not be winnowed down to just two candidates after Super Tuesday.
There will be one next year, I’m betting. She has made it known that she wants one more chance in the batters box. What a fool. And her supporters are even worse. But then again, she has a lot of IOUs outstanding and she needs to pay up.