Fascinating stuff. My wife was just asking me if a brokered convention is likely. I don’t know if it is likely but there is a strong possibility. The situation that bothers me is concerning the “super delegates” and their ability to give Romney the majority in the first vote at the convention. Just don’t like the super delegate concept. Gives the establishment too much power. How are the super delegates chosen?
How did the elections get so complicated? Geesh
There aren’t “super delegates.” But each state sends a few of their party leaders along as delegates who can vote for whoever they want. They’d probably make up 5-10% of the total and they have an equal vote.
Ron Paul people are trying to sign up to be delegates wherever they can. On the first vote, they might be bound to elect whoever their state voted for, but on the second vote they can switch to Ron Paul.
It is 99% guaranteed that if Ron Paul can’t win, most if not all of his delegates will switch to Romney. Which means for anyone else to have a chance, Paul’s and Romney’s delegates added together have to total less than the 1144 needed to win.
The way things are going, even if the convention is brokered, it looks like Romney will enter the convention in the lead. It will be his to lose. The establishment will have no qualms about pushing for him hard if he has a plurality of delegates at that point. They can always argue he was in the lead so it’s more democratic to make him the winner.