However, this has been an unusual year in that each party has two distinct front-runners and it is becoming likely that one if not both conventions this summer will be brokered.
As to whether this is a good or bad thing remains to be seen. For the GOP, if a brokered convention means that McCain will not be the nominee, than it is definitely a good thing. For the Democrats, the Clintons are nasty enough to emerge from any brokered convention the victors because they will stoop to any level and make any deal necessary to ensure that they emerge with the nomination.
Right, SamAdams, but it wouldn’t necessarily mean it would be Romney, either. In fact, it probably wouldn’t be EITHER man, pissing off a lot of voters from both camps...
Hey, SamAdams—
We COULD end up with...SENATOR LIEBERMAN!!
The problem is, you need three to broker a convention. That means Huckabee and/or Ron Paul need to siphon off as many delegates as possible between now and the convention for there to be any chance for a dark horse to emerge, someone hand picked to be well liked among the base but still electable to the masses.
Remember, the party establishment is still pretty much run by the Bush administration by virtue that Bush is still in office, and McCain and Bush still don’t like each other all that much (so much to the point that McCain almost ran as a Democrat VP candidate... wisely he chose against it). Don’t automatically assume McCain’s the nominee if the convention goes brokered, as it possibly will.
The Democrats, for that reason alone, will not have a brokered convention, because only Obama and Clinton have a chance. The more likely scenario is that Obama may win the primaries but if Clinton hauls in superdelegates and, on top of that, gets the Michigan and Florida uncontested election results counted so that she walks away with the Democratic nomination, then all hell will break loose in that party.