Posted on 03/21/2012 12:18:31 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul's slim hopes of winning the Republican presidential nomination depend primarily on their ability to triumph at a contested convention in August. The idea is that if front-runner Mitt Romney falls short of the 1,144 delegates he needs to secure the nomination outright before the convention, his rivals will seize the opportunity to win over the Republican faithful during the convention process.
That long-shot strategy depends on Gingrich and Paul actually getting on the convention ballot. And it now appears that may be a problem. The Atlanta-Journal Constitution has noticed a little-known rule - No. 40(b), to be exact - that would seem to keep the two candidates from being able to participate in a floor fight.
The rule was adopted in 2008, and here's what it says: "Each candidate for nomination for President of the United States and Vice President of the United States shall demonstrate the support of a plurality of the delegates from each of five (5) or more states, severally, prior to the presentation of the name of that candidate for nomination."
[SNIP]
It's possible that even if Gingrich or Paul's delegates can't vote for their candidate on the first ballot, they could do so on subsequent ballots if Gingrich and/or Paul garners the support of a plurality of delegates from at least five states during the fight on the convention floor. Under Republican National Committee rules, Gingrich or Paul would need to be formally nominated after the first ballot for this to happen, and demonstrate their support in five states when this happens. It's an extremely unlikely scenario, though technically possible......
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
------and the person with the most money to buy negative ads in this year's GOP election.
A lot of states have the rule that on the second ballot of the National Convention, the State Chairman gets to cast the votes as he thinks best.
And some of those states say that on the THIRD ballot, the individual delegates can vote for a ham sandwich, if that's what they think is best.
Didn’t see that yesterday, so I’ll just talk about it here.
Thompson did not rise to the top and then get torn down.
If there is a comparison in 2012 to Thompson, it isn’t Gingrich, it’s Perry. Both Thompson and Perry entered the contest late as shining knights to rescue the conservatives. Both entered the contest with great media coverage, and both started with high poll numbers. For a while, both were leading in national polls, and were showing strength in multiple states. They both had a good deal of money, and received good endorsements.
Then both of them turned out to be bad campaigners. They couldn’t generate excitement, sparks, or a sense of excitement. Each of course had their negatives, Thompson was the catalyst for Campaign Finance Reform, and was weak on illegals; Perry had the in-state tuition issue, the border fence being demagauged by his detractors, and other similarly minor but pesky problems.
But what blew them both up was the inability to keep people’s interest. So by the time votes actually started, neither could win a contest. Both worked very hard at Iowa, and both failed miserably at it, (losing in both cases to the SoCon candidate, as TitanAFC does point out).
Both soldiered on, vowing to win South Carolina. Both failed at that, and the only difference is that Thompson waited until that contest was over to drop out, while Perry was quicker to the punch, dropping out ahead of time and throwing his support to Gingrich, which may have helped Newt win a couple of delegates.
Newt Gingrich was actually following the McCain pattern, not to make a philosophical comparison though. He entered the race early, but never caught hold, faltered, ran out of money, and at one point was imploding so badly that his campaign staff went to another candidate — Thompson in 2008 for McCain, Perry in 2012 for Gingrich.
Then, as Iowa rolled around, he got some traction, started coming up in the polls while others failed. He did respectably in Iowa, like Gingrich did. Then McCain won New Hampshire which gave him instant credibility — while Gingrich, being a southern conservative, had to wait for his big win until South Carolina. But if you look at their poll numbers, they track relatively well through that point.
Not only that, but note that Perry and Gingrich were good friends, and Thompson and McCain were good friends. At the end, people said Thompson was just placeholding until McCain could come back. With Perry, he endorsed Gingrich and gave him his organization back.
And in 2008, McCain and Huckabee teamed up to stop Romney. In 2012, Gingrich and Santorum have teamed up to stop Romney.
The only difference between 2008 and 2012? It worked in 2008. It isn’t working in 2012. Probably because McCain was actually an acceptable GOP establishment candidate, while Gingrich was on the outs with that group; meanwhile, in 2008 Romney wasn’t in with the GOP, but he spent 4 years fixing that.
Gingrich wasn’t the conservative frontrunner who got crushed. He was the 2nd-to-last man standing, after every other (and possibly better) candidates failed.
If Gingrich was the true conservative darling, he would have caught fire back in March of 2011. If he had, his debate skills would have been seen as golden for front-runner status, ROmney would have been stopped in his tracks, and we’d have spent months deciding if any of the other conservatives might be a better pick than the “maverick” Gingrich with his Pelosi and other occasional missteps.
But Gingrich was no conservative darling. He was dismissed as a failed, flawed candidate. Even when he did well in debates, conservatives just expressed pleasure that someone was able to make our points, even if he couldn’t be the nominee.
Now, I know some people here supported Gingrich from the beginning. But if everybody had, Perry never would have entered the race, nobody would have been pining all summer for Palin, and the world would look a lot different now.
It turns out that November was way too late to decide to start supporting Gingrich. Too late for him to put a team together. Too late for him to get organized, to get a clear message, to get registered in all the states, to unite the conservatives.
But don’t blame Santorum. Santorum got screwed by a process that failed to recognize his win in Iowa until after he was blown away in New Hampshire. But he wasn’t rabidly attacking Gingrich. In fact, Conservatives were rallying around Gingrich before, during, and after South Carolina. He was riding high in the polls, pulled off a great win in South Carolina, and Santorum had given up on Florida.
What happened to Gingrich in Florida wasn’t Santorum’s fault.
And the abettors were all those in the media with their "let's keep this thing going" - let's see what they're made of, and that includes Sarah.
rush let something slip a week or so ago, at least it was the first time I ever heard him say it - that his main objective with Operation Chaos was to keep the primary interesting so his listeners would keep tuning in, and then he added, quickly, and of course to enable Hillary's presence to bloody obama.
And I am not so sure this same isn't going on in a lot of circles, including Rush's right now... or has been...
And the poor stupid rubes take it all so seriously, like the fate of a nation hung in balance or something...
Right, Gingrich staying in hurts Romney more than Santorum. That said, finishing last, behind Ron Paul, is really disappointing.
So how is a delegate bound to Gingrich or Paul supposed to vote on the first ballot if Gingrich/Paul isn’t allowed to be nominated? Can they vote present? Are they automatically unbound at that point and can vote for whoever they want?
Also take note if Gingrich and Santorum’s votes were combined in Illinois, they would have won 18 of the 28 counties that Romney won.
Keep in mind Ron Paul’s people are signing up to be delegates for other candidates and plan to throw their support to Ron Paul as soon as they are unbound.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2843327/posts
You don’t understand the winner-take-all delegate allocation rules. Most of the upcoming states either award all the delegates to whoever has the highest votes per district or state, or they deny delegates to other candidates if one candidate gets over 50%. In 18 of the 28 counties in IL, the combined votes from Rick and Newt would have switched Romney from the winner to the loser. And if Rick had Newt’s votes in AL, Romney would have been shut out of a lot of the delegates he got. If Rick announced Newt as his V.P., he’d definitely get more than half of Newt’s voters, and they’d get such a media surge and bump from the announcement, it would be reminiscent of what happened to the McCain ticket after Palin gave her convention speech.
Yes. Another "fly" in the ointment.
At least that's some good news. If we could kick that radical, hypocritical, profiteering crank out of the Republican party and arrest him for trespassing if he tries to enter the convention then that would be even better.
At this article source: "A related question: What happens to bound delegates if their candidate doesn't appear on the ballot? CBS News has contacted the four state Republican parties to explain what would happen to Gingrich and Paul's bound delegates if the candidates are not on the ballot; thus far only Mississippi Republican party has responded.
"[S]hould Gingrich not be on the first ballot, his delegates would be released in the same way that they would if he suspended his campaign," Communications Director Brett Kittredge said in an email." [end text]
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I've heard pressure is placed on them by the state GOP to follow the lead of their "special delegates," usually notable party members -- ie the GOP-e.
Which he can do if he makes joint appearances with Santorum.
BLOCK Romney from his 1144 and make the Party Elite carry Mitt to the nomination on their shoulders at the convention for all the base to watch.
Can't be done unless either Newt or Rick drops out so they can take advantage of winner-take-all rules. They're helping Romney get to 1,144 faster by splitting the vote. It's time to stop ignoring the math and the facts.
The fact is, I support Newt.
Santorum (like Mitt) is a moderate and I do not support them.
It's a sad comment on Americans that most are sheep who will do whatever their party leaders or preachers tell them even it goes against their better judgment. There was a study a few years back that showed Americans and Germans were the two nationalities most likely to blindly follow authority figures. Hitler sure knew that and our leaders seem to grow more confident of that fact every single day.
As per usual when it comes to the in and outs of the rules, and the math you are far more knowledgeable than I JJ. However, I think you’re too optimistic regarding Newt supporters getting behind Santorum. If Newt were to drop out tomorrow what is your estimation of the split Santorum would need? (please base your estimation on reality and not the pie in the sky theories I’ve heard of Santorum trouncing Romney in liberal/moderate states like California and New Jersey)
Well it might be brokered after all in that case. Judging by all the post-election speeches so far, none of the candidates are going to be able to meet that requirement.
none of the candidates are going to be able to meet that requirement.
LOL........... But the candidates aren’t doing the nominating nor seconding speeches.
So do I but, again, my goal is to stop Romney from being nominated first. If we don't do that, Newt isn't going to be involved in the next administration at all. I'm willing to settle for him as V.P. because I believe Santorum would agree to implement most of his ideas. Santorum's been doing good at stealing his lines. I'd prefer that Santorum drop out and endorse Newt of course, but that's simply a pipe dream now given which one is ahead in the polls.
I see that you completely leave Cain out of your math.
i am certain that this rule can be changed by majority vote at the convention. So if MITT has the majority ... the issue is moot anyway.
They wanted to stop ronPaul from seconding his own nomination and giving a convention speech. Treachery.
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