Jonathan Bernstein has weighed in again on the implausibility of a brokered convention. A lot of what he is saying is aimed at a different argument, which is that some savior might parachute into the primaries in late-January or February and win enough delegates to be the nominee. I agree with Bernstein that that won’t happen. But the brokered convention is a totally different conversation. It comes down to an assessment of the likelihood that no candidate will win a majority of the delegates. I am utterly unconvinced by Bernstein’s argument that that possibility is completely remote.
I explained much of my reasoning in my last piece, but let’s look at what Bernstein is saying:
What a deadlocked convention needs is three or more candidates winning delegates. But the nature of the process is that candidates who do poorly in the first states are starved for resources and drop out. That’s already happened with (at least) Tim Pawlenty. It will happen in the next month with, almost certainly, any candidate who does badly in Iowa and New Hampshire…most likely, we’ll be down to three or four active candidates at most, one of whom will be Ron Paul. It’s highly unlikely that we’ll still have more than two plus Paul after Florida — we did, briefly in 2008 (with Huck, Mitt, and McCain all making it to Supertuesday), but the logic of the process makes that the best-case scenario for a split field, and as we saw in 2008 it wasn’t really all that split.
Meanwhile, Paul is unlikely to pile up very many delegates. There are just too many events that are winner-take-all, either by state or congressional district, for a candidate who gets a consistent 15% everywhere to have that translated into very much at the convention. My best guess is that Paul will be very challenged to reach 10% of the delegate total as a very optimistic upside.
Which means that if there are only two other candidates in most states that they’ll have to finish in a dead heat for Paul’s handful of delegates and the smattering of delegates won by candidates who drop out early to prevent the winner from hitting 50% + 1.
The first and most important premise is that “candidates who do poorly in the first states are starved for resources and drop out.” To me, that’s obsolete Tim Pawlenty-thinking. Who needs resources? Does Newt Gingrich have any resources? Bernstein is assuming that this election is part of a logical continuum and that it, therefore, can be accurately predicted by reference to prior elections. But too much is already different from all prior elections for that to be a safe bet. When was the last time that the Establishment candidate couldn’t crack 25% in the polls?
Earlier in his piece, Bernstein predicted that Romney would drop out if he lost both Iowa and New Hampshire, but I see no good reason why he would do that. He’d still have the most money. He’d still be the Establishment choice. And he’d be under enormous pressure not to concede to clown candidates. We know Ron Paul won’t drop out. If Gingrich can win Iowa with no money or field organization, he can certainly keep running. As for Rick Perry, if he sees that Romney is losing the early contests, he has added incentive to stay in the race as it turns south. I suppose that Huntsman will drop out after Iowa, or maybe New Hampshire. Rick Santorum will probably do the same. Michele Bachmann probably won’t persist for too long.
But what Bernstein is ignoring is that the electorate is unlikely to embrace Romney based on the opinions of a few voters in a small handful of states. If Romney wins Iowa and New Hampshire, he might roll to the nomination, but who thinks he will win Iowa? Who is all that confident that he’ll win in New Hampshire?
And why should we assume that Gingrich won’t produce at least as much buyer’s remorse as Bachmann and Cain did before him? It seems to me that the most likely process will be similar to what we’ve seen over the last year. Once a candidate gets a lead, everyone will freak out and move to another option. And this should repeat itself in a somewhat circular manner, with people coming back to Romney once all alternatives have been exhausted. It’s a kind of anti-momentum, where the deadliest thing is to get a lead and look like you might actually become the nominee. People vote for Gingrich because he’s not Romney, and Paul because he’s not Gingrich, and Perry because he’s not Paul, and Romney because he’s not Perry. Round and round we go, and when the carousel ends, no one has enough delegates to claim the nomination.
All this requires is that Romney not get off to a strong start and that he not drop out.
I agree that Ron Paul will probably struggle to get more than 10% of the delegates if it remains a crowded field. If it becomes a two-way race between Romney and Paul, anything can happen. It’s true that 62% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents find Ron Paul totally unacceptable as a presidential candidate, but 41% say the same thing about Romney. I think the more important point is that Paul is likely to stay in the race until the very end, and probably will pick up whatever scraps are available. If he picks up 10%, that just makes Romney’s job of reaching 50% that much harder.
And show me some sign that Romney is about to break out and start winning primaries. Show me anyone who thinks that Gingrich can walk to the nomination. Show me how Rick Perry can get his act together. And how can Paul win when 62% of the voters see him as beyond the pale? If no one can make a case that they’re going to be the winner, why not predict that none of them will be the winner? I mean, it’s possible. It’s very possible.
