Posted on 02/20/2012 9:14:55 AM PST by Bruce Campbells Chin
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney's struggles in Michigan are fueling speculation that Republicans might have to resort to a doomsday scenario and launch a frantic search for a 2012 savior at their nominating convention in late August....How did Republicans get to this point? Romney's failure to get conservatives fully behind him and put down yet another challenger in the party - this time it's Rick Santorum - is causing angst in the party. Many senior Republicans do not think Santorum, a social conservative caught up in the U.S. culture wars over issues like abortion and contraception, has a chance to beat Obama if he wins the party's presidential nomination. When he ran for re-election as a U.S. senator from Pennsylvania in 2006, Santorum lost by 18 percentage points.... "It's hard for me to see how Romney rights the ship if he loses Michigan," said Republican strategist Matt Mackowiak. "There is no level of spin that can overcome that disaster." Michigan will set the table for "Super Tuesday," the March 6 jackpot when 10 states hold Republican nominating contests. A loss for Romney in Michigan would raise serious doubts over whether he can rally enough support to have a big day on Super Tuesday and make a big move toward clinching the nomination. ....Who would Republicans turn to if not Romney or Santorum? Think of two popular governors, Mitch Daniels of Indiana and Chris Christie of New Jersey, or former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, or even U.S. congressman Paul Ryan, author of a budget plan popular with Republicans....
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Too bad. I searched the word “brokered” and the last time it came up in a thread title was early January.
Too bad. I searched the word “brokered” and the last time it came up in a thread title was early January.
How about letting the people choose their candidate or does the GOP leadership not believe in democracy now? Didn’t think so.
Even in a two man race.
The non-Romney delegates will be coerced to change their votes to Romney by the state GOP-e leaders thanks to homo dirt dug up by Matt Rhoades and Matt Drudge over the past 4 years.
Romney has NO integrity.
He should PULL OUT instead of destroying America
as he did when he had his vicious team attack
Gov. Palin and her children (HER CHILDREN!!!!!!).
PULL OUT ROMNEY.
Newt and Rick seem to have a truce...but their supporters are constantly trashing each other. We are oh so close to getting Romney out...come on people!
cause God Forbid that the VOTERS actually get the final say in who the candidate turns out to be. The too-smart-by-half Brahmans have to figure out a way to cram another RINO squish up our mmmm.mmmmm...mmmmmms.
This country is SO about to split into a 3 party system.
A Bush candidacy will lose to the third party candidate.
Exactly! Rick is ahead in MI, OH and TX and is showing respectable numbers in GA. I don't expect to go into the convention w/o a winner and I expect that winner to be Santorum.
The homo blackmail courtesy of Drudge-Rhoades will push Romney over the top after the arm-twisting begins.
Posters to this thread are correct: a broker or contested convention means one thing: an establishment republican will win. And most likely it will be Mitt Romney. At that point I throw up and go on a fishing trip the first week in November and pray the people who are prepping for the end of the world on December 21, 2012 are right.
I wasn't a Palin supporter, but I'd prefer her over either of these three. I'd also take Daniels, Ryan, or Rubio.
I would say yes, he would be guaranteed the nomination; however, I also suspect a brokered convention also illustrates just how divided the GOP is. In otherwords, we probably don’t have a prayer in November no matter who gets the nomination.
I hope you are right though I am a Newt Gingrich supporter. But I just don’t see it.
How so? If none of the four remaining candidates gets a majority going into the convention, then how do you say what the voters "final say" actually is?
I think Paul makes the likelihood of a contested or brokered convention more likely than some might think. He's not going to drop out, and if he ends up with 10% or so of the delegates, and if we assume most of the super delegates go to Romney, I don't see Santorum or Newt breaking the 50% barrier.
Whomever it would be would be irrelevant. They would be in the exact mold of Romney, McCain, Dole...
If all the delegates are released to draft someone not currently running then I would, if I were a delegate, nominate the one person who is exactly the opposite of Mitt Romney and the typical GOP-E mentality politician in every way, shape and form.
Ted Nugent.
Just to shake things up a bit.
If it goes to the convention I foresee total gridlock, and thus I think it's more likely Newt and Santorum would throw support behind an entirely new ticket (i.e. one without either of them on it) that represents their constituency reasonably well. I suspect the strategy would be a geographic play to lock up two of three between VA/NC, WI/MI/OH or CO/NM/NV. Given that my guess is McDonnell / Daniels.
Yeah, the search is not too good sometimes (often). :’)
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