What's Wrong With a "Brokered" Convention?

Unless Mitt Romney starts to make a move, we're looking at a scenario where he doesn't get to Tampa with enough deglegates. Most of the other contenders have a bigger hill to climb to get there-

With his opponents, Republican strategists and the media pointing out that "delegate math" is heavily against him, Rick Santorum struck back on Sunday, saying that the delegation projections aren't great for Mitt Romney or other Republican contenders at this point in the race either.

"This isn't a mathematical formula," the former Pennsylvania senator said on NBC's "Meet the Press." When host David Gregory pointed out that Santorum would have to get 61 percent of the vote in upcoming GOP primaries to win the nomination, Santorum noted that Romney would need to win roughly 50 percent of that vote in order to become the nominee himself. "On the current track that we're on now, Gov. Romney doesn't get to that number."

Conservatives usually don't like looking overseas for inspiration give American exceptionalism, but party leadership conventions in other countries rarely come in with a working majority for one candidate unless it is an incumbent, even ones like Canada were a primary-of-sorts of party members is held.

The interesting thing here is that the old notion of a "brokered convention" assumes that there are party bosses who can broker such a deal in a smoke-filled room, as the old meme goes. Not only would the conference room in 2012 be most likely smoke-free if not virtual in nature, but there would be no stogie-packing brokers to be patching together a deal.

The delegates (and the party at large) would be looking at who would best match their policy desires and who can send Obama packing to the Kennedy Center (or some law-prof slot) come January. It will probably be one of the candidates currently going, since they've been oppoed into the ground and most of the other prospective candidates (with the exception of Palin) haven't gotten that white-glove treatment as of yet.

Horse-trading is limited by law. Santorum can't offer Newt a cabinet position for backing him per law, although putting Newt in the cabinet would be a good place for him; we could bring him out from behind the fine china every so often.

So, pointing out that Santorum or Gingrich can't easily get to a majority is not a debate-stopper. Romney seems stuck in the 30s and can't break through to a majority, so letting a convention cogitate on the alternatives for the summer wouldn't be a bad idea.