Duncan Hunter has been our choice from Day 1.........so sorry he's out........:(
I am still confused about this but based upon what Ive read you are correct. Anyone can be drafted it seems. Fine mess we find ourselves in this year.
From the GOP rule book:
Rule No.40
Nominations
b) Each candidate for nomination for President of the United States and Vice President of the United States shall demonstrate the support of a majority of the delegates from each of five (5) or more states, severally, prior to the presentation of the name of that candidate for nomination.
McCain, Romney and Huckabee are the only ones who will qualify on the first ballot. After the first ballot, I guess a majority of delegates from 5 states can draft a new candidate for consideration.
I also take it from this that McCain and other candidates can only suggest a VP preference and none of the delegates are pledged to support the choice. This would theoretically make it difficult for McCain to choose a rino.
One problem though, I was looking at the national delegates from Alabama who were elected a few days ago and it appears that Romney's delegates were split up for McCain and Huckabee to pick half and half. That's how it appeared to me. If that's how all the states choose their delegates then it will be nothing but McCain and Huckabee delegates at the convention and the Romney portion that McCain gets to pick the delegate for will vote for McCain on the first ballot, giving him plenty of delegates to win the thing outright.
Even if McCain dropped out or meets his maker prior to the convention, based on my perception of how it was done in Alabama, all of his selected national delegates would still be there and would probably draft someone like Lindsey Graham to replace him.
If FReepers organized and made it their goal to become the national delegates for the Republicans in all of the states, we could accomplish it. That is why they public isn't informed too openly about how the process works.