The era of deadlocked conventions is over, because the leadership of both parties realized that by controlling the convention rules committee, they could dictate who the candidate would be.
In turn, this message is then sent out to the critical state parties, to insure they anoint the chosen one, which can be told ahead of time with a delegate count.
At this point, I’m pretty sure that the party leaders have chosen Romney to be the candidate, so his instructions are to just remain quiet, say nothing particularly controversial, and let the other candidates thrash around.
If any of them get too far ahead, then they will get critical party support weakened, and the Republican spin doctors, like Karl Rove, will actively undermine them.
When the convention rolls around, only Romney supporters will get to give the prime time speeches, and anyone else will be shoved to late night slots.
They also want to avoid any fiasco as what happened to the Democrats when Tip O’Neil took the podium, read off unpopular resolutions, and ignored the overwhelming “No!” from the crowd before declaring that “in the opinion of the chair, the ‘Aye’s’ have it.”
At this point, the only chance any other candidate has is for either Romney to horribly screw up, his funding to dry up, or the rank and file so profoundly rejecting him that the leadership chooses some other RINO.
Conservative? Oh, heck no. The leadership would prefer a radical leftist Democrat president to a conservative. Reagan was a fluke, and they bitterly hated every minute of his presidency.
“They also want to avoid any fiasco as what happened to the Democrats when Tip O’Neil took the podium, read off unpopular resolutions, and ignored the overwhelming “No!” from the crowd before declaring that “in the opinion of the chair, the ‘Aye’s’ have it.”
What fiasco happened when the Speaker of the House pulled that on the Democrat Delegates? Did they rush the podium and tar-and-feather the old coot?