Newt?
Rubio? Although there a lots of burned bridges there.
Condi Rice for VP?
What's your best guess
Yeb and kasich
They would never nominate Guiliani. He is pro-choice and they always have pro-life as part of the platform.
NONE of the ones you listed in post #1. If neither Trump or Cruz make it, the nominee should be someone such as Senator Sessions - a nominee that BOTH Trumpsters & Cruzers could support enthusiastically.
I don’t think Cruz has any chance at all. Cruz may think that the anti-Trump crusade is a pro-Cruz crusade, but it surely is not.
“Here’s exactly how a brokered Republican convention would work”
According to WaPo AND Frontloading HQ:
Josh Putnam is a lecturer in the Political Science Department at the University of Georgia. But, to political junkies, he’s better known as the founder of Frontloading HQ (FHQ, for short), a site that tracks the presidential primary calendar and all that comes with it. With an open convention on the Republican side looking more and more likely, I reached out to Josh to ask a few questions about the rest of the primary calendar and to clear up all of the fuzziness about exactly how that convention might work. Our conversation, conducted via email and edited only for grammar, is below.
Trump will win on the first ballot.
Barring that, a “savior” will emerge from the ranks of the GOPe. It won’t be Cruz, more likely Rubio or Kasich. Bernie wins the General.
Since Trump and Cruz will have the most Delegate votes they will be able to write the convention rules and I’m sure they will keep Rule 40...
Cant even bear to think about any of those choices. Honestly if they do something this stupid and out of touch, they really will have a very bad situation on their hands. Two large groups of disenfranchised voters who have very viable candidates (Cruz, Trump) that are being cheated. Is this what our founding fathers designed—somehow i think not and the greed for money and power have perverted it.
I think the staff for both candidates should talk and discuss what happens in this event because they cannot take this lying down.
What worries me is this whole thing of what “candidates” are allowed to do to or give delegates.
At the end of the day...there is only one candidate for the Republican Party to support, and that is Donald J. Trump. Cruz will never beat any Democrat, he ticks peo[ple off, when he says Good Morning to them, and, boring, Paul Ryan puts people to sleep when he talks...he would be a total loss to the Democrats. Forget McCain, Romney, Graham, Fiorina, Bush, etc., they are all deadbeat losers.
There is only Donald J. Trump for the Republican Party, the American people, all of them, every single one of them, & the American nation!!!
GO DONALD J. TRUMP!!!
Put simply, If it is not Trump, no one has a path to become president— Trump supporters are loyal and passionate and already irritated with the establishment ignoring them and without approximately 1/3rd of the base, all Republicans will be crushed.
It’s going to be a problem because there really is no type of candidate that has genuine majority support in the GOP.
The choice will have to be a GOPe/Establishment candidate. I’m not sure that the Establishment would select Rudy.
You also have to consider that the GOPe might rather have Hillary as President, so that they continue to get their (GOPe) percentage of the Democrats’ graft and corruption.
In that case, it will be another “Designated Loser”; someone who has good optics, like Romney had in 2012. Romney looked “presidential”, but he clearly wasn’t interested in winning. He made a good “poster boy” for the GOPe. I think it will be someone similar.
OTOH, I believe it was Prince Reebus who said that the candidate will be someone who is already running. That being the case; it would have to be Kasich, Rubio, or ?.
Obama keeps saying that Trump won’t be Preezy. So the Dem fix is already in with their election-fraud machine. The GOPe knows they can’t fight that, so they’ll just pick a pretty face that personifies the Establishment.
My 2¢.
I feel like the establishment wont let someone in that will do a good job and put Republicans in the house and senate back to work... Giuliani and Newt and Huckabee would be good.
I presume most of the people in the room are originally Trump or Cruz supporters, not just delegates. I don’t see a chance in hell they would stand for a GOPe hand-picked nominee. He needs to be somebody with some true conservative bonafides, not just Republican. Secondly, if they are office-holders, they would have to be people who could be replaced by another Republican for their House/Senate/Gubernatorial seat.
All that said, my short list would be:
Sen. Jeff Sessions (AL)
Sen. Mike Lee (UT)
Former congressman Allen West (FL)
If you can get the Trump and Cruz factions to both agree on one compromise candidate, it won’t matter what the GOP-e wants.
>> What’s your best guess <<
The delegates are not fools. Most of them are good hometown folks, who have been active in local GOP duties for a while, and most of them will want to do what they judge is best for the party and for the nation. They will not take these duties lightly, and they are not likely to be intimidated by threats from any candidate or his proxies.
Anyway, after it becomes clear that Mr. Trump can’t win on the first ballot, I think many delegates will start moving toward Cruz. Most delegates are too smart and to knowledgeable about politics to go with a “white knight” who might come to the convention with few or zero votes, because they know that a new candidate like this would disastrously alienate not only the Trump supporters but also the Cruz supporters.
Therefore, to make a long story short, I believe Cruz will wrap things up no later than the fourth ballot, but most likely on the third. Then he will name Nikki Haley as his VP running mate.
Today this was posted:
retired Marine General “Maddog” Mattis
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3418992/posts
... group of wealthy donors is preparing to draft retired Marine Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis to run for president and take down Donald Trump,...
The game plan would be for Mattis to win enough states to keep Trump and Hillary Clinton from getting the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency....
The HOUSE WOULD THEN PICK THE PRESIDENT, and supporters believe lawmakers would support a former general widely seen as an American hero.
“But they do have to nominate someone, and remember, any Convention Rule can be changed by a simple voice vote.”
The rules are set by the “Rules Committee” before voting begins.
It isn’t going to be changed by voice vote so Kasich can be nominated.
Honoring the spirit of your thread, Mitch Daniels. Oddly, his biggest weakness may his stature. 5’7” or so.
Because Rubes has only “suspended” his campaign (I think Yeb too) either of them will be the nominee if it isn’t Trump.
It will not be Cruz. He has always been a Trump speedbump. If the GOPe gets Trump out, they absolutely will not let Cruz win.