As the best thinkers begin to peer into the abyss that is our future, if we stay on the current path, some things are crystallizing.
First, there’s this quote from the Wall St. Journal (via NRO)
“The biggest problem with the GOP Presidential field is that each of the candidates seems to be running to represent only part of the Republican coalition. Mr. Romney sounds like he thinks conservatives can be won over with a few poll-tested lines like “I’ll repeal ObamaCare,” while Mr. Santorum sounds like he only needs conservative votes to become President. To adapt Ronald Reagan’s famous line, Where’s the rest of them?”"
Then, there’s this from Allahpundit at Hot Air:
“One: A dark horse would have grave weaknesses, but depending upon who he/she is, I’m not sure the dark horse would be weaker than Romney. Like Cost says, even if Romney, Santorum, or Gingrich survives a brokered convention to emerge as nominee, they’ll be brutalized by the process. It may be that you need a clean slate with a new candidate at that point. Two: The absence of any organization for the dark horse is a concern, but it’s a concern that party leaders will begin to deal with long before the convention begins. If Super Tuesday comes and goes and the race is still deeply divided three ways, you’ll start seeing stories in the press about some sort of organization quietly being assembled to get to work for a dark-horse nominee just in case it comes to that. The RNC and conservative Super PACs will also start gearing up to go to war for the nominee in case he has no organization of his own. Don’t get me wrong: The organizational question mark is a serious concern, but we’re going to end up playing a weak hand no matter what in November. Serious concerns will abound until the polls open on election day.”
And third, there’s this from Real Clear Politics:
“For many conservative Republicans, the dream outcome of the primary season is a brokered convention. Disappointed in the four remaining choices, they hope to change horses in August, and draft their preferred candidate, be it Jeb Bush, Mitch Daniels, Chris Christie, or Paul Ryan.”
For more and more and more disenchanted voters, it is becoming painfully obvious that the spotlight on the four “B” teamers left in this race, has them staring into the abyss. There’s a tunnel at the end of that light.
What many believed was far-fetched, not possible, not doable…may be our only salvation.
Romney, Gingrich and Santorum are not ready for prime time players. And Paul is not even ready for Saturday cartoons. although his base seems a fitting match for them. Young, unserious, noisy and not a firm grasp on the borders between reality and make believe.
Now, objective, non-fanatical, sober minds and those with a large dose of critical thinking…are coming to the conclusion that we are barreling toward a disaster, that is at least preventable. IF…we begin preparations now AND…if we don’t stay the course because of the most powerful force in the political universe.
Inertia.
No, it will NOT be easy, comfortable or “nice” to tell the four “B” teamers that they are benched. In fact, it will be messy and more than a bit chaotic.
Guess what? It’s going to be messy and more than a bit chaotic anyway.
Time to make a course correction BEFORE the crash, not simply hope the airbag inflates and doesn’t snap our necks.
Beating back the overthrow is the ONLY imperative. Everything else is secondary. Fixing the fiscal disaster is the first order of business, but you can’t do that from the loser’s circle.
It is right to demand better, it is wise to demand better…and by God it is TIME to demand better. The alternative is unthinkable.
I wrote this piece and gave it to Bryan last night, probably while he was sleeping, like a normal human should.
This morning, Jonah Goldberg joined the team.
From NRO:
“Now, the race is just a mess. I feel like the revolver in reality’s hand is full of blanks, and anyone who thinks they know what happens next is stabbing in the dark. I could live with either man being the nominee. And while I would happily vote for either in a contest against Obama, I honestly have no idea who would be more electable. Frankly, I find the prospect of any of them becoming the nominee worrisome and hard to imagine. A brokered convention seems ever more plausible –— and desirable.”
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/290686/gop-race-gets-messy-jonah-goldberg
I’d like to see this happen but I’ve got a bunch of misgivings.
1. The primary process is good at vetting candidates. It’s certainly shown us that the 4 we have left are terrible. If we could have got a few months longer before voting started, I suspect all of the candidates would have been eliminated.
2. There will be a flaw with any candidate you choose. There are no unicorns. A brokered unicorn will have some disappointing features. Even a candidate better than the 4 we have will be disappointing if our expectations are not set right.
3.There will be a hue and cry about ignoring the voices of the primary votes by picking someone new. Complaints about elites silencing the voice of voters who this many votes to this or that candidate. I’m not terribly sympathetic. The primary voters have to accept some responsibility for the types of candidates who get drawn in and succeed. And if it is a mess, then it’s the job of the convention to sort it out. That’s why we pick delegates anyway.
The primary voters, heroica, I submit will have been heard loud and clear.
NONE of these guys captured them. MOST who did bother to vote for this inferior slate…openly stated that they were not convinced on ANY of them, and only decided at the last minute…given no other choices.
A HUGE amount…stayed home…low turnout is a vote of no confidence, no enthusiasm and no real choice.
Only Republicans get vetted. But, I don’t buy the notion that a consensus candidate is going to deprive anyone of “vetting” them vs. Obama.
Paul Ryan is unlikely to have many skeletons, but you never know. A Ryan/Rubio ticket would slay Obama/Biden. It’s the winning ticket, I’m confident.
And…I KNOW they can articulate the message. I’ve heard them both. We should insist on it.
“It is right to demand better, it is wise to demand better…and by God it is TIME to demand better. The alternative is unthinkable.”
Damn straight. Not one of these four remaining candidates can beat Obama.
What makes anyone think that the candidate produced from the heretofore unknown undiscussed and unplanned “Brokered Convention” will be any better than these 3 characters? If you cant execute a process like a primary, what makes you think a wholly new invention like a “Brokered Convention” is going to do anything but splinter the party into a million pieces? How do you win anything if you cant link arms and work together?
Seriously? Who is going to be organizing and then running said “Brokered Convention”? The very same people you are blaming for this current situation.
The “Brokered Convention” is a phantom, a falsehood, a downright lie. It does not exist. If it were to exist, it would not accomplish the stated goal.
We need to stop this silly, destructive, non-productive fantasy thinking that there is a way out of this. This isnt the strategy or tactics of winning. this is birtherism writ large. Its the lie of the hollywood ending longshot. Oh and its Its crap. Its not even entertaining crap, its destructive crap.
If you want your candidate to win, raise money, volunteer your time, get out the vote and be sure to vote yourself. Your guy doesnt win. Suck it up and see what you can do to help the guy that did. Our Guy, not the other guy. I quote Rumsfeld: “You dont always go to war with the Army you want, you sometimes go to war with the Army you have”. Well this is the Army we got guys. Stop bitching.
I know, it sucks and it sucks mightily and I’m right there with you gritting my teeth because I don’t like it either, but that’s the only play we have that could possibly work. The rest of this “Brokered Convention” crap is doing nothing but ensuring that Obama wins.
Stop It.
Wrong, Frank.
Dead wrong, unfortunately.
We are heading toward a brokered convention, whether we shut our eyes really, really tightly and click our ruby heels…we aren’t in Kansas any longer.
Birtherism? Get a grip.
That’s a non sequitor and makes not a lick of sense. NONE of these candidates is going to have enough delegates by August.
NONE are worthy of the Presidency, they are all “B” teamers.
And, NO…there is no “those guys” who are going to “make the selection”. It will be Romney forced down everyone’s throat…AT A BROKERED CONVENTION…or a “consensus” candidate who is acceptable to everyone.
And, let’s get over this nonsense that “it can’t happen”. It IS happening.
It is now only a matter of HOW it happens, not if it happens.
Paul will NOT ever, ever, ever..be the nominee.
Nor will Gingrich.
I guarantee you that if we go to a convention without a winner…Santorum will NEVER be the nominee.
That leaves Romney…OR…a consensus candidate.
Like it or don’t. Believe it or don’t.
Romney has gone through the “vetting” process…and been found wanting. If you are for Romney, fine. You can say that and stick by it.
I’m not.
I’m for a consensus candidate…and NOTHING about the fallacies surrounding how an “unvetted” Republican candidate…makes the likely selections LESS APPEALING to me…than one of these four.
Again, I will defend to the death your right to back anyone you please…and be dead wrong about that choice.
Just explain to me how a “Brokered Convention” actually works. In real logistical terms.
Who gets up to the podium, who does what to whom and with what? Where does it go next. The Republican Party is a real organization, with real people getting paid real money to make things happen. I know this sounds hard to believe but they have rules, bylaws, corporate officers and the like. The convention is not and has not been for a very long time an actual convention like it was in the old days. That set of rules ended with the move towards the Primary system.
You want me to follow you off on some great quest, I’m up for it. You just need to explain to me how this is going to work. That’s all I ask.
If you dont have a plan, if there is no way to make this work in real achievable terms, you need to stop thinking about it as an option. Thats what we call a ‘fantasy’ and while there are times when that can be entertaining, this aint one of them.
There are two candidates we can draft at the convention who have already been vetted: Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin. Oh sure, Romney will be livid if Huckabee comes out of nowhere and takes the nomination from him, but what’s he going to do about it? Endorse Obama? That will get him laughed out of public view. He’ll either get over it (maybe with the help of a VP nomination) or retire and stew about it for the next 20 years, complaining how Huckabee screwed him over twice.
The way it works is this. You get about 1,100 delegates from the primaries and caucus’ and youre the nominee. The only way “Brokering” can occur is if no candidate manages to get to the magic number of 1,100 before the convention. If that were to happen, the 4 candidates will being horsetrading their pledged delegates with each other. When that happens, one of the candidates will drop out, and pledge his delegates to whomever cuts the best deal. Usually this occurs to retire their rather sizable campaign debt or to secure the VP slot or both.
So the only feasible “brokering” is going to be between these four candidates in some form or fashion. That changes things a bit now doesnt it?
The idea that you are going to run all of these primaries, spend all of this money, set up all of these campaign staff in all of these states get the delegates you need AND THEN just walk away from it all is an eight layer dip of sillyness. No one with an ego big enough to be a politician and run for President would ever do that, the party bylaws don’t allow for it and the numbers on the table don’t show that happening. This is why I use the word “Fantasy” to describe this idea of “Brokered Convention”. It simply does not exist in the way that people imagine that it might be useful to save them from this horrible awful ‘fate worse than death”. Its not awful, its not even unusual, its just a primary season and frankly, its going along nicely.
I humbly submit that everyone is a little ‘wire-happy’ right now and they need to calm down just a tidge and put some perspective on all of this. Look at it like this – In all likelyhood we will have a candidate with the required number of delegates sometime in June. The race is coming down to two viable candidates at the same time that it always does, right here in Feb-March. This timing is not unusual nor is it a problem with the party.
If you want to have something to blame the turnout problem on, you can blame the ‘fantasists’ who continue this seriously half baked idea of a “brokered Convention” as a sort of “Do Over” so we can go get “someone we really want”. People dont turn out if they think their efforts and votes wont really matter because someone else is going to undo all of the primary efforts.
And folks, that person that looms over the top of all your fantasies, that “Conservative Messiah” that’s just waiting for us to call him…
Simply…does…not…exist.
All of the most likely people we would pick have already made it clear that they are not running. This is not an accident, they are serious and they are not kidding. Jeb Bush, Palin, Huckabee, Daniels, Christie, Jindal have all had time to think about it and they all said “No way”. Some of them have said it more than once. Rick Perry was the last shot for someone to get into the race. His experience shows that the campaign for President doesn’t tolerate late entries very well. He had about the best background, best credentials and by far the best chance and yet, he folded up rather quickly. If anyone was quietly sitting outside thinking it would be great to get it, The disaster of the Perry campaign put idea that to sleep. ( and yes, it is sad, but there you go…)
You might think that it would be fun to bring in an outsider in August and make them “The Nominee”, but you really havent thought of what it would mean for this person to put together a campaign against Obama, nor have you considered at all what that would do to our chances to win.
I would like to remind everyone that its not enough just to win the nomination. After you win, you have to take that same organization that you just used to secure the organization in each of those states and you have to pivot those orgs to attack Obama and Democrats. Primary campaigns are like spring training. You work your teams, find out whos strong and weak, bring in talent where needed and hopefully you’ll have a team worth competing in the big leagues when the time comes.
Oh, so you got the nomination at the last minute and you dont have a campaign staff in all these states? You dont have people to work phones? You dont have big databases of donors and supporters? oh, thats going to suck..
Oh you say you got the nomination through a process of burning bridges with local staff, not paying local staff and generally not handling your local campaigns very well? Ewwww….
Yeah, you might get the nomination by hook or crook Mr. Bigpants, but after you get nominated, you get exactly 10 weeks to win the Presidency. Its over in a flash.
Running for President is not an accident. Its not all “Hey kids, lets put on a show in the barn” like youre an older version of “The Little Rascals”. Its work. Hard thankless expensive work that rarely works to achieve its actual goals.
If you really want to win this election, you better get out there and get ready to campaign for whomever win the nomination, whether you like them or not.
And you need to get out there now.
– no candidate wins the Presidency without first winning the New Hampshire primary; been that way and so shall it ever be. Or it has been a century since a presidential candidate won the popular vote, but lost the Electoral Vote count. Or since a President was impeached. Or all Popes have been Italian for half a millenium. But then the contrary happens. It may have been a long time since the last brokered convention or the last time convention votes went to a second or third ballot, but it could happen.
Draft Rep. Tom McClintock!