You heard it here first, about a year ago. Now the New York Times is coming around:
For the first time in a generation, Republicans are preparing for the possibility that their presidential nomination could be decided at their national convention rather than on the campaign trail, a prospect that would upend one of the rituals of modern politics.
With Santorum still showing some strength, my best estimate is that Romney will need a big majority of the unpledged delegates if he wants to secure the nomination on the first ballot at the Republican National Convention in Tampa. I do not see him currently winning an outright majority of the pledged delegates. Big wins in Illinois and Puerto Rico could change that, but only if Santorum’s level of support collapses as a result.
The Romney campaign is carefully monitoring Mr. Santorum’s and Mr. Gingrich’s delegate tallies and plans to label them spoilers if reaching 1,144 becomes implausible for them. At that point, Mr. Santorum and Mr. Gingrich would be running to stop Mr. Romney from doing so — a strategy that Mr. Gingrich is already discussing openly — and thereby forcing a fight to the convention.
“Roughly translated, that means, ‘We’re planning on ensuring the party can’t choose a nominee until September, with 60 days to take on an incumbent president who will have $1 billion,’ ” [Romney campaign’s chief counsel] Ms. [Katie Biber] Chen said, referring to an often disputed estimate of Mr. Obama’s fund-raising goal.
Roughly translated, that means that the GOP electorate will have done everything it can do to make it clear that they do not want Mitt Romney as their standard bearer. Even when provided with the most ridiculous alternatives in the history of American politics, they couldn’t agree to Mitt Romney. Then they will assemble in Tampa and have a giant fight which will most likely result in the party establishment shoving Romney down the base’s throat. And then they’ll have sixty days to patch everything up.
As things stand, Romney will probably have the votes he needs, but not without the unpledged delegates who come mainly from the RNC. And this is not assured.
Randy Evans, Mr. Gingrich’s lawyer and senior adviser, said that to reach 1,144, Mr. Romney would have to rely on some of the more than 100 unbound delegates from around the country who have so far given him oral commitments, and “we know in politics how valuable those are.”
Mr. Romney’s campaign said it might have to rely on such commitments, but was not concerned.
Mr. Santorum and Mr. Gingrich believe that they will have an edge over Mr. Romney among the party delegates because, as Mr. Santorum’s new delegate strategist, John P. Yob, said, “the people who show up for county, district and state conventions are much more conservative than your average primary voters.”
But, again, most of these unpledged (or unbound) delegates are actually RNC officials. They are pretty conservative, but they’re also team players. They’ll probably try their damnedest to throw the nomination to Romney before the festivities begin at the convention. We’ll see how that goes over with the base.
