Blog Post

Another political observer on the deadlocked GOP convention scenario

December 30, 2015 | by Scott Bomboy

A former Romney and Bush adviser is the latest political observer to lay out the possibilities of a chaotic Cleveland convention for the Republicans this summer.

 

romney456Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Benjamin L. Ginsburg is a Jones Day partner with a long list of political and legal credentials. Ginsburg was national counsel in four campaigns involving George W. Bush and Mitt Romney, so he’s no stranger to the political convention process. And on Tuesday, Ginsburg bluntly explained three GOP convention scenarios.

 

“Three convention scenarios can emerge after 56 states and territories choose their delegates between Feb. 1 and June 7: There will be a clear winner, a bunched up field of several candidates, or a leader who can't get a majority of delegates on the first ballot. The latter two scenarios would make Cleveland uncharted territory,” Ginsburg said.

 

The “uncharted territory” would be an unsettled GOP convention in the primaries era that started after the 1960s. In the days before primaries, there were several examples of “brokered conventions” settled with smoke-filled backroom negotiations.

 

That’s not an option in 2016, says Ginsburg. “There are no ‘brokers’ left in the Republican Party. Closest to that status will be candidates who win some delegates before having to ‘suspend’ their campaigns, but are able to come back at the convention with first-ballot leverage, or perhaps special-interest-group leaders whose members are delegates,” he says.

 

The key date to watch for, in his opinion, is April 26, when Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Delaware and Rhode Island hold their primaries. Three other primary dates before then are also crucial.

 

“If one candidate doesn't emerge cleanly from each of these, two other scenarios come into play,” Ginsburg believes. Those scenarios would see a group of candidates short of the 1,237 delegates needed for the nomination, or one lead candidate being blocked by other candidates or party leaders.

 

If no one wins the nomination on the first ballot, all 2,472 delegates can vote for anyone who has had their name placed in nomination.

 

And another factor, which Ginsburg and other observers have written about, is how the convention will decide to settle delegate disputes, and to settle how many victories in primary states elections will be needed for candidates to get on the first ballot.

 

This could lead to a scenario similar to the 1912 GOP convention in Chicago, where supporters of William Howard Taft and Theodore Roosevelt fought over seating delegates.

 

“The credentials committee will hear challenges--over issues such as flawed state-convention procedures or a delegate's true party registration--to delegate slates and individual delegates, a potentially decisive role in an unsettled convention,” Ginsburg theorizes.

 

And still another possibility: the convention could go beyond its scheduled July 18 to July 21 dates in Cleveland, if a nominee isn’t chosen.

 

In past years, five conventions that were deadlocked saw more than 40 ballots held until a winner was named, and all five of these contests were at the Democratic National Convention. The most ballots ever held at a Republican convention was 36 in 1880, when James Garfield became the nominee.


 
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