A Brokered Convention Could Be Dangerous for GOP
By Sean Trende - February 17, 2012
For the past two weeks, I've commented on the increased possibility of a brokered Republican convention. This is a scenario where no candidate manages to claim a majority of the delegates, and the convention deadlocks.
At that point anything can happen. Candidates can combine forces, urging their delegates to support another candidate (usually in exchange for a vice presidential nod or cabinet appointment). Or the convention can turn to an outside candidate in an attempt to break the deadlock.
The latter possibility has caused some excitement among GOP’ers dissatisfied with the current field. After all, a brokered convention could end up drafting one of their favored candidates, such as Mitch Daniels, Paul Ryan or Chris Christie. The idea is that this person could then unite the party in a way that none of the four current contenders has been able to.
This is certainly the upside of such a scenario. And one argument in particular supports it: The remaining field of candidates is clearly very weak. While it isn’t the weakest in my lifetime, it gives the 1996 Republican contenders and the 2004 Democratic group a run for their money.
So if you look at the 2012 field and conclude that none of them can defeat President Obama, then a brokered convention probably makes sense for Republicans. In other words, if you believe the GOP couldn’t do any worse than Ron Paul, Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney, or Newt Gingrich, then there’s little to be lost with a brokered convention.
I wouldn’t personally endorse that view, as I continue to believe that this election is about Obama, and that his re-election chances are quite weak regardless of his opponent. Reasonable minds can certainly disagree, but if you conclude that one of the remaining four could win, I think the upside of a brokered convention has to be weighed against these downsides:
1) A brokered convention is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get. A brokered convention truly is a wild affair with unpredictable results. Sometimes you get a candidate who wins and becomes a president that most historians later consider “near great,” such as James K. Polk. Sometimes you get a candidate who wins and becomes a president like Benjamin Harrison, who did some good things and some not-so-good things. And sometimes you get Franklin Pierce, who probably made the Civil War inevitable. You might even get John W. Davis, who failed to excite his party and won just 28 percent of the vote.
Remember, “brokered” is a bit of a misnomer. Party brokers (whoever they are) may decide upon a particular alternative, but the delegates -- who will show up in Tampa largely believing that Gingrich, Paul, Romney or Santorum should be president -- may not be in any more of a mood to follow the party “establishment” than the GOP electorate as a whole is.
So while one may envision Jeb Bush or Paul Ryan emerging from the convention as the party’s standard-bearer, the possibility is real that the Gingrich and Santorum delegates could coalesce around someone like Sarah Palin. Now, for some Republicans that’s an attractive feature in the scenario. For others, it is the worst imaginable outcome. Regardless, it’s a real possibility.
2) “What It Takes,” 2012 edition. Richard Ben Cramer’s account of the 1988 presidential election is a classic, not just of election literature but of non-fiction in general. It was with a bit of sadness that I revisited it in preparation for this campaign, since this will likely be the final campaign to include any of the candidates profiled in the book (at least one major candidate from the book has played a part in every election from 1988 through 2012).
The theme of the book is simple: The candidates who win presidential races are the ones most willing to do what it takes to win; candidates who pull their punches fall by the wayside quickly. This is as true today as it was 24 years ago. Tim Pawlenty may be able to look himself in the mirror for not tearing down Romney early on, but it will never be a mirror in the presidential bathroom.
It is also an underappreciated problem of a brokered convention in the modern setting. All of the alternative candidates mentioned as potential winners in a 2012 convention are politicians who looked at what it took to win a contested primary, followed by a nasty general election, and then for whatever reason decided that it wasn’t worth it.
That’s a dangerous outlook on the election to have, especially when Team Obama has decided, if nothing else, that it is absolutely willing to do whatever it takes to win. Say what you will about Gingrich and Santorum, but they wanted to be president so badly that they were willing to carry their own luggage during a summer when everyone wrote them off. Romney has his flaws, but after a six-year presidential campaign we can safely conclude that a desire to become president is not one of them. So while we may admire Mitch Daniels for placing his family above the presidency, that same trait may be a substantial flaw in a modern presidential candidate.
To be sure, there may be reasons a candidate who wanted to avoid an 80-week marathon would nevertheless be willing to go all-in for a 10-week sprint (although it would be followed up by a long, four-year term in office). Regardless, this is a serious cause for concern. Once the afterglow of the convention wears off, how will a candidate who didn’t entirely want to do this in the first place fare?
3) A campaign in the 2000s is different from a campaign in the 1800s. The golden age of the party conventions took place many decades ago, before the invention of television, and in large part before radios were available. Candidates typically declared their intentions to be considered for president shortly before the convention. The convention might go on for several days, and it could be ugly, but few outsiders knew what was going on.
And after that gathering, the nominee often sat at home (candidates didn’t start appearing at conventions until the mid-1900s) and delivered daily speeches to sojourners who trekked to, say, Marion or Canton, Ohio, to hear him speak. Some of the more energetic candidates sat aboard trains and delivered speeches to crowds that gathered to see them at various stops.
In the meantime, the parties organized torchlight parades, prepared pamphlets, and used partisan news organizations to spread their message and get out the vote. There were no commercials, no 30-second ads, and no “gotcha” interviews broadcast in prime time and replayed on YouTube. In other words, campaigns took place in a much more controlled environment. This is how a mediocrity like Warren Harding ended up winning the largest popular-vote victory in history after emerging from a brokered convention.
Obviously, things are very different today. Every moment of the convention will be captured on TV. Camera crews will surround the candidates, interview supporters, and always be on the lookout for signs of chaos or disorganization. If any such signs emerge, it will contrast sharply with the Democratic convention one week later. Remember, one of Obama’s main campaign themes will be “regardless of what you think of me, you do NOT want to turn power back to these people.” A chaotic Republican convention plays directly into this attack.
After being selected, the nominee will have to choose a running mate (in truth, the convention will probably do this, which could be even worse), prepare a platform, decide upon campaign themes, prepare for debates, prepare for interviews, get ads running, and learn the nuances of how various grain subsidies affect Wisconsin commerce and why the U.S. maintains the position it does on the anti-Russian insurgency in the North Caucasus. And he or she will have to raise, quickly, about a half-billion dollars to compete in the general election. There is very little time to do this, as debates start in six weeks, and new organizations will be clamoring for interviews with the candidate.
Could all this be done? Sure. But cautionary tales abound. Imagine if Rick Perry had passed on a campaign, been selected in a brokered convention, and stepped onto the debate stage shortly afterward against President Obama. Or we can look to the ill-fated campaigns of Fred Thompson and Wesley Clark, or Sarah Palin’s vice presidential candidacy.
The primaries serve a vital function in preparation for the general election; this is where a candidate hones his debate skills and works out his campaign platform on a gradual basis. Every presidential nominee in my lifetime became a better candidate during the course of the primary season, and if nothing else, the primaries allow voters to weed out weak candidates. There are very few people who could skip this time period without any major negative effect on their chances.
And if the GOP nominee has a skeleton in his or her closet, or in their family’s closet, there is no turning back.
4) There is no time for party wounds to heal. The divisions arising in the Republican primary are in many respects the symptoms of a divided party. Just about every pundit I’ve read has a different idea regarding who would be the ideal nominee to emerge from such a convention, and usually has a different priority that prompts that support.
This says nothing of the supporters of the candidates who make their way to Tampa. Paul, Santorum, Romney, and Gingrich will all have won both votes and delegates in the primaries. That gives them a degree of legitimacy that will elude any outsider. This is especially true if a candidate goes into the convention with a substantial lead in either delegates or popular votes. Though some supporters of that candidate will be “soft,” and won’t care that their man didn’t grab the nomination, I suspect that many will not be so understanding.
Now, divides always occur to a certain extent during a primary season. Extended primaries inherently expose fractures in the party, and the losing side is always disappointed. But then there is an extended period of “quiet time,” when the losing side comes to terms with the presumptive nominee. Conventions are increasingly a cathartic moment where supporters of the losers come around -- witness Hillary Clinton and the 2008 Democratic convention.
But with a brokered convention, there is no time to heal. Not only will many of the supporters of the already-declared candidates likely exit the convention hall disappointed, but the supporters of various outside candidates who don’t get the nod will also be angry. And then the general election campaign starts immediately. It will be difficult enough to put together a coherent campaign in 10 weeks. It may be impossible to do so while also having to heal intra-party rifts.
Most other years, I would have put this objection either first or second. If John Edwards had stayed in past Super Tuesday in 2008, preventing Clinton or Obama from claiming a majority of the delegates, I think the 2008 convention would have torn the Democratic Party apart. This year, the considerations are different, because all four GOP candidates are seriously flawed, and support for them (with the exception of Paul) is probably shallow. In other words, the wounds inflicted might be superficial, and may be entirely offset by the increased enthusiasm that surrounds the nomination of Daniels (or whoever). Still, we’re talking about a not-insignificant number of Republicans who would be disappointed in this outcome, and in a close race, this could potentially make a difference.
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Some of this could be avoided by a variant of a brokered convention. If a candidate were to enter late (the absolute deadline for this is mid-March), sweep most of the final caucuses and primaries, engage in some debates, and use the summer to put together a general election campaign, then that candidate would be in a much stronger position to claim the mantle of legitimacy at the convention, and to win in the fall.
But failing that, this is a very risky strategy for Republicans. Unless you think the current crop is an absolute disaster waiting to happen -- again, a defensible position -- the Republican Party would be playing with fire if it went down this road.
Sean Trende is Senior Elections Analyst for RealClearPolitics. He can be reached at
[email protected].
