Too Late for a White Knight     Permalink

There has been a lot of speculation in the media of late about what is going to happen if Rick Santorum defeats Mitt Romney in Michigan on Feb. 28. In reality, there will be a lot of moaning and groaning from Republican quarters about how this is a bad thing, but it is unlikely anything concrete will happen until a week later, when 10 states vote on super Tuesday, March 6. If Romney wins only Massachusetts, Vermont, and Virgina (where Gingrich and Santorum aren't on the ballot), panic will break out among party leaders and the cry for a white knight will become deafening. Only it is not going to happen because it is too late. Here is the list of filing deadlines for March and later, including all the caucuses, which usually do not have a filing deadline.

If some other candidate jumped in on Feb. 29, the day after the Michigan and Arizona primaries and magically qualified for all the remaining primaries and got all the delegates, he or she would get 883 delegates, far short of the 1144 needed to win the nomination. And such a scenario is completely unrealistic because (1) it takes weeks to collect the signatures to qualify to get on the ballot and (2) the events before April 1 use some form of proportional allocation of delegates, so to get 100% of the delegates from, say, Idaho, the new candidate would have to get 100% of the votes at the caucus, which is pretty unlikely. Realistically, if a candidate with close to 100% name recognition (that's you Mike Huckabee and you Sarah Palin) were to jump in on March 7 and spend two weeks qualifying for the remaining states, the only primaries he or she would make are California, South Dakota, New Jersey, and Texas (whose filing date is up in the air until the court cases about redistricting there have been settled). Even a clean sweep of all those states would yield only 405 delegates, about a third of what is needed.

Of course, if a new candidate emerged and did very well, it is possible that no candidate would have enough delegates to win on the first ballot, in which case all delegates would be freed to vote their consciences on the second ballot and anything could happen. Now consider this arithmetic from the point of view of Huckabee or Palin. You jump into the race on March 7 and work your tail off for 6 months only to have the party leaders anoint someone else in Tampa? Not an attractive proposition.

Another name that has been bandied about as the savior is Gov. Mitch Daniels (R-IN), who has far less charisma than Mitt Romney (yes, Virginia, that is possible) and whose wife and daughters are known to be against a run. Also a possible candidate is Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ), who is on record saying he is not ready for the job this year. In reality, there are not a lot of Republicans other than Huckabee and Palin who could become the instant front runner on day 1. So, for better or worse, the field we have now is the field we are going to have.

Even if no candidate has 1144 votes on the first ballot (still an unlikely outcome at this point), the Republicans will not have a brokered convention simply because there are no brokers any more. In the old days, Speaker John Boehner and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell would get together in a smoke-filled room and pick a candidate. But their choice, Mitt Romney, is already known, and they aren't getting a lot of traction with him. So how could they pull someone out of thin air and expect the party to go along with him or her?

If no candidate gets a majority on the first ballot, no one knows what might happen. There are persistent rumors that some Ron Paul supporters are trying to get elected to the convention as Romney delegates. If they succeed and there is a second ballot, they would be free to vote for Paul or any other candidate he favors from then on. The possibility of such a stealth strategy is very real because in most caucus states, there are precinct, county, congressional district, and state caucuses and anyone at the state caucus can run for RNC delegate. Generally speaking, the people there don't know each other and anyone making a strong (but possibly fake) speech for Romney could be elected to the convention as a Romney delegate. Such a candidate would probably vote for Romney on the first ballot but then do Paul's bidding on subsequent ballots.

In fact, the situation is even worse than that. About 30 states have no law requiring convention delegates to vote for the person they are pledged to, even on the first ballot. A person elected to the RNC as, say, a Romney delegate in March, might have second thoughts about him in August, for example, if polls showed him losing to President Obama in November. If such a delegate voted for someone else, even on the first ballot, there would be no legal sanctions taken against him or her. Normally, one candidate has such an overwhelming lead in delegates that a few faithless delegates don't matter, but this year it could.

Another Republican Debate Tomorrow     Permalink

Tomorrow CNN will host another debate between the four remaining Republican candidates in Mesa Arizona. While Arizona is not hotly contested (Romney is expected to win it due to the substantial Mormon population in northern Arizona), no doubt people in Michigan will be watching, too. It should be interesting to see if Santorum and Romney really go after each other this time. This is the first debate held with Santorum in the lead nationally.

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