End of the American
Dream

New Republican
primary rules are going to make it basically impossible for any
candidate to wrap up the Republican nomination very early in 2012.
In fact, the new Republican primary rules make a “brokered convention”
much more likely and they also make it much more likely that the
Republican establishment will attempt to steal the nomination away
from a candidate that they do not like. How exactly they would do
this will be discussed later in the article. The key is that most
Republican primaries and caucuses will now allocate delegates using
a proportional system rather than a “winner take all” system. Back
in 2008, John McCain did very well in early “winner take all” primaries
and wrapped up the Republican nomination very, very quickly. Nothing
like that will happen in 2012. In fact, if the field remains crowded
it is going to be very difficult for any candidate to accumulate
more than 50 percent of the delegates by the time the Republican
national convention rolls around. As will be discussed later on
in this article, that would move the power into the hands of the
Republican establishment.

First, let’s
try to understand what these new changes are. Sadly, it appears
that even most Republican voters do not understand how things have
changed.

The following
rule was adopted by the Republican
Party back in August 2010….

“Any
presidential primary, caucus, convention, or other meeting held
for the purpose of selecting delegates to the national convention
which occurs prior to the first day of April in the year in which
the national convention is held, shall provide for the allocation
of delegates on a proportional basis.”

This new rule
means that delegates will be apportioned to candidates on a proportional
basis in Republican caucuses and primaries that are conducted prior
to April 1st. One notable exception to this rule is
Florida, which got approval to remain a “winner take all” state.
So Florida will be very important.

In addition,
all of the states that are now using “proportional representation”
do not allocate delegates the exact same way. Each state has slightly
different election rules.

But in general,
in most of the primaries and caucuses held before April 1st, delegates
will be awarded to multiple candidates instead of to just a single
candidate.

Therefore,
it now becomes much less important who wins each individual state.
Instead, the key is how many delegates a candidate picks up in each
state.

The Republicans
decided to go to such a system after watching the extended battle
between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in 2008. The following
comes from a recent Huffington
Post article….

Don’t
look for a quick winner in the race for the Republican presidential
nomination. After watching Democrats successfully ride their historic
primary battle between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama
all the way to the White House in 2008, the Republicans quietly
adopted a new rule designed to extend their nominating process
this time around.

The rule
limits the ability of candidates to win large numbers of delegates
in early primaries and caucuses – those held before April – because
delegates must be awarded in proportion to the votes a candidate
receives.

If proportional
representation would have been used back in 2008, the Republican
race would have looked much different. John McCain would have had
to battle much, much longer to secure the nomination.

The following
comes from
fairvote.org….

Consider
the 2008 Republican nomination contest. John McCain secured an
essentially insurmountable lead on February 5, Super Tuesday.
Sen. McCain had become the frontrunner heading into Super Tuesday
by winning three key primaries: South Carolina, Florida and New
Hampshire. His average percentage share in those contests was
just 34.5%, and he never even broke the 40% threshold. Even on
February 5, he won only 3 states with a majority of the vote.

Although
McCain on Super Tuesday did not capture a majority of the popular
vote (and did not, in fact, ever reach a majority of 50% of votes
cast in primaries), McCain’s disproportionately large delegate
count forced his leading opponents to drop out of the race.

Some even believe
that an extended three way race between McCain, Romney and Huckabee
could have resulted in a “brokered convention” back in 2008. The
following analysis comes from a recent Daily
Kos article….

In 2008,
the Republican primary contest was decided quickly and relatively
painlessly only because there were winner-take-all rules at the
time. Those rules have been changed. If you take the current proportional
delegate rules and apply them to the results of the 2008 race
through Feb 5th, when the race was still heavily contested, something
very surprising happens. John McCain, who took a commanding lead
under the winner-take-all rules in effect in most states, instead
ends up behind Mitt Romney by eight delegates (with a confidence
factor of plus or minus 5 delegates.) The standings, with more
than half the delegates decided, would have been as follows.

Romney
439
McCain
431
Huckabee
247
Other
114

This year,
there will be very few “winner take all” primaries, and most of
those will be at the end of the schedule.

This is going
to encourage candidates to stick around longer. The more delegates
that a candidate can accumulate, the more leverage that candidate
will have moving into the convention.

Right now,
the Republican field is very crowded and nobody has been able to
take a commanding lead in the polls. The possibility that no candidate
will be able to accumulate more than 50% of the delegates by the
time of the Republican convention seems to grow by the day.

If no candidate
has won more than 50% of the delegates by convention time, then
it is likely that we will have a brokered convention.

So exactly
what is a brokered convention?

The following
is how Wikipedia
defines a brokered convention….

A brokered
convention is a situation in United States politics in which there
are not enough delegates ‘won’ during the presidential primary
and caucus elections for a single candidate to have a pre-existing
majority, during the first official vote for a political party’s
presidential-candidate at its nominating convention.

Once
the first ballot, or vote, has occurred, and no candidate has
a majority of the delegates’ votes, the convention is then considered
brokered; thereafter, the nomination is decided through a process
of alternating political horse-trading, and additional re-votes.
In this circumstance, all regular delegates (who, previously,
were pledged to the candidate who had won their respective state’s
primary or caucus election) are “released,” and are able to switch
their allegiance to a different candidate before the next round
of balloting. It is hoped that this ‘freedom’ will result in a
re-vote resulting in a clear majority of delegates for one candidate.

Okay, so how
does all of this make it possible for the Republican establishment
to steal the nomination from a candidate that they do not like?

It is actually
very easy.

If the Republican
establishment does not like the candidate that is leading in the
delegate count, they can try to shoot for a brokered convention.

They can do
this by encouraging candidates to say in the race longer in order
to water down the vote.

They can also
do this by encouraging late entrants into the race in order to steal
some delegates away.

In fact, there
are persistent rumors that the Republican establishment is already
lining up late entrants to enter the race. The following comes from
a recent Wall
Street Journal article….

Efforts
are underway by some wealthy Republican donors and a group of
conservative leaders to investigate whether a new Republican candidate
could still get into the presidential race. The talk is still
preliminary and somewhat wishful, but it reflects dissatisfaction
with the two leading candidates, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney.

Conservative
leaders are looking into whether it is feasible for a dark horse
to get on the ballot in select states. The deadline to qualifying
for the ballot has passed in Florida, South Carolina, Missouri,
and New Hampshire. But a candidate could still get on the ballot
in states like Tennessee, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Michigan and Texas.
At the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses, voters write in their
choice, so there is no formal filing deadline.

The chatter
about potential new entrants include former New York Mayor Rudy
Giuliani, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, businessman Donald Trump,
Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint.

If a candidate
that the Republican establishment does not like gets out to an early
lead, the Republican establishment will move heaven and earth in
an attempt to keep that candidate from accumulating 50 percent of
the delegates.

The goal would
be to cause a brokered convention which would enable the Republican
establishment to hand pick whatever candidate that they want.

In fact, if
a brokered convention happens the Republicans could end up selecting
someone that is not even running.

It certainly
does not sound very American, but this is a very real possibility.

The Republican
establishment is only going to go along with the will of the people
as long as they pick the “correct” candidate.

That is why
any anti-establishment candidate is going to be facing a huge uphill
battle this year. It would be way too easy for the Republican establishment
to force a brokered convention.

Any candidate
that wants to avoid a brokered convention is going to have to accumulate
more than 50 percent of the delegates before the convention, and
that is going to be very difficult to do under the new rules.

Reprinted
with permission from End
of the American Dream.

December
27, 2011

Copyright
© 2011 End
of the American Dream