We hear this crap (brokered conventions) every four years.
The days of the smoke filled rooms were a select few horse traded delegates ended about 100 years ago.
Yeah, the last one we know about
would have been in 1920, when the
phrase “smoke-filled room” was
immanentized. Daugherty shoe-horned
Harding into the nomination.
Yeah, but all indications are that THIS TIME it is true. When every commentator almost without exception, every politician, almost without exception, and every country in the world has a big mouth shouting that Trump is a disgrace, I am REALLY INCLINED to be FOR TRUMP just on old fashioned American Principles. To hell with everybody trying to tell me hat I am supposed to think and then having the nerve that they can limit my choices! The Pond Scum is NOT going to succeed this time.
It's not like it was a hundred or even fifty years ago. By the time the conventions roll around the general campaign is in full swing and the parties both realize that there is no way to change this.
If one candidate handily wins Iowa and New Hampshire, it's pretty much over. If they go on to win South Carolina, it's certainly over. It will be over by Super Tuesday no matter what happens.
A "brokered" convention is what happens if no candidate wins a majority on the first ballot. After the first ballot, delegates pledged to particular candidates are released from their pledge. On subsequent ballots, they are free to switch their votes until some candidate finally wins a majority.
So, what happens if the top two are Trump and Cruz or Cruz and Trump? I would think the lower vote-getter would ask his delegates to vote for the higher, who would then win on the second ballot.
Of course, many more chaotic outcomes are possible.
“The days of the smoke filled rooms were a select few horse traded delegates ended about 100 years ago.”
Just today duing the drive home I heard ABC radio news mention the likelihood of a brokered Republican convention because “there is no clear front runner”.