Republicans 2012

'It’s the scenario every political reporter, and every West Wing fan, wants to see for real: a brokered convention'.

'A legitimate contested convention is still unlikely, but it’s not impossible if Santorum keeps up his strength in the Midwest, Gingrich keeps winning the South, Ron Paul keeps winning his consistent minority share of delegates, and Mitt Romney can’t rally the party behind him'.

#1 - 'While it’s way too late for any of those candidates to get on the ballot in enough states to win, they could potentially be nominated from the floor of the Republican convention. According to the RNC rules adopted in 2008, a plurality of delegates from five states need to declare their support for a candidate in order to bring them up for a vote on the nomination'.

#2 - 'The RNC codes prohibit state chairs from forcing individuals to vote with the majority of their delegates'.
“The truth is our rules are set up so the delegates of the convention are all independent,” RNC committee member Curly Haugland of North Dakota told TPM'.

# 3 - 'So bringing in a dark horse candidate as a compromise offer isn’t impossible procedurally. But in practice it may be near impossible. Political scientist Jonathan Bernstein notes that the old “brokered conventions” before the modern primary age relied on powerful party bosses'.

# 4 -'But in the current age it’s not clear there are any leaders with that kind of pull over groups of delegates, making credible negotiations more difficult to work out.
“Basically, if we ever get there, it’s up for grabs and we have no idea who the delegates will be loyal to,” Bernstein told TPM. “They may just be an individual case by case basis.”

# 5 - 'Even if by some miracle a consensus emerges around a new candidate, their problems are severe once they accept the nomination. Without any organization ready, they’d likely have to accept limited federal funds to run their effort and then hope to cannibalize from the losing contenders immediately to create some kind of functioning campaign'.

But back to the real World - 'The more realistic scenario is that Romney has to find a way to top off a delegate majority after several deadlocked ballots'.

'Another option is to get a different campaign to play kingmaker. Here is where Ron Paul could play a major factor. Not only is he racking up a loyal group of delegates, but his followers have been known to try and take over state conventions which are usually low turnout affairs, in order to select more Paul delegates than were won proportionately in the caucuses'.

'The Washington Post recently noted that Romney has gone out of his way to befriend Paul across the last two campaigns and the two seem to have a relatively warm relationship. Perhaps he could win a major platform concession from Romney in exchange for agreeing to deliver his delegates'?
From : http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/02/what-if-the-gop-contest-goes-to-convention.php?ref=fpblg