As your Salem-Keizer political reporter, I am back with more information on the 2008 Elections.
Please be patient and read all of this post and you may be suprised at how things are shaking out.
So we're back to square one in the Republican Party.
Mitt Romney beat John McCain handily in Michigan, which means there have now been three major GOP contests and three different comeback winners. At this rate, Thompson will win South Carolina and Giuliani Florida. The GOP primary is starting to look like a Pee Wee soccer tournament: Everyone gets a trophy!
After Romney's losses in Iowa and New Hampshire, he offered the flaccid boast that he had won the silver medal, but Tuesday night he was finally able to claim that he had won a genuinely hard-fought primary. Until now he had done nothing but watch his leads in the polls diminish, but in Michigan he trailed McCain and battled back to win. Yes, he had long ties to the state, which voters said influenced their vote; and yes, he bought nearly three times as much TV time in Michigan as his nearest rival, but McCain had advantages too. He won the state in 2000 and had momentum coming into the primary from his New Hampshire victory.
The state was essentially do-or-die for Romney. After two big losses, it was starting to look like no matter how much money, organization, and rigid smiles he threw into the race, none of it was enough to make voters like him. Romney would have had the resources to continue after a Michigan loss, but it would have been a sad death march.
The issue terrain will be different in South Carolina. The economic downturn is on the minds of voters in South Carolina, and the key bloc of voters is social conservatives, who make up 40 percent to 60 percent of the GOP electorate. Their influence will make Mike Huckabee a much stronger presence than he was in Michigan, where he came in a distant third. McCain might be able to bounce back from his loss by exploiting his strong ties to the state's considerable veteran community, as well as by winning over ex-Giuliani supporters.
And then there's Fred Thompson, long left for dead, who—while he's not climbing in the polls—is nevertheless getting aggressive in a way that might cause trouble for Huckabee and Romney.
The Republican contest is a muddle, and it's only going to get more so as the campaign heads to South Carolina. But for one night at least, the most orderly man in the race sits atop the chaos.
Now what many fear will happen by the end of this primary season is a "brokered convention". This is the worst and yet most fun way to elect a nominee. This is the old smoked filled rooms where deals are made based on who has how many delegates.
I will quote from wikipedia to explain "brokered convention better".
Brokered convention
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A brokered convention refers to a situation in United States politics where there are not enough delegates obtained during the presidential primary and caucus process for a single candidate to obtain a majority for the presidential nominating convention. Since no candidates receive enough votes on the first ballot to win the nomination, the convention is brokered through political horse-trading and multiple ballots.
Background
Before the era of presidential primaries, conventions were routinely brokered. Adlai Stevenson in 1952 for the Democratic Party and Thomas Dewey in 1948 for the Republican Party were the last two candidates elected through a brokered convention. The last seriously contested convention was the 1976 Republican convention, where Gerald Ford beat Ronald Reagan on the first ballot without obtaining a majority of delegates through the primary and caucus process.
Since then, there have been many years where brokered conventions were projected, but did not come to pass. In 1988, a brokered convention was predicted for the Democrats since multiple candidates won the Super Tuesday primaries that year.[1]
Difficulty
The possibility of a brokered convention is seen as more likely for the Democratic Party because of its proportional representation system and the large number of "superdelegates" (almost 20% of the 2008 total), who are Democratic elected officials, former elected officials, and other important figures in the Party. [2]
In the 2008 election cycle, the possibility of a brokered convention remains for both parties. On the Republican side, although some states award delegates using the winner take all system, many large states are dividing their delegation by congressional district, which will result in easier splitting of delegates. [3] Pundits argue that with the lack of a front runner in the Republican field and the number of competitive candidates, voters will not coalesce around one or two candidates and a brokered convention could result. [4] On the Democratic side, the current split of support for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and the announcement by John Edwards that he will remain in the race until the convention could result in a 3-way race where no candidate receives a majority of delegates on the first ballot. [5] Many Al Gore supporters have stated that a brokered convention would be the last chance for Gore to enter the race; some see his book, "The Assault on Reason," as implicity suggesting this strategy.
Several factors encourage decision in the primary process. First, candidates tend to get momentum as they go through the process, due to the bandwagon effect. Thus, one or two candidates will be seen by the media and voters as the front runner due to their placement in the first primaries and caucuses, and as also-ran candidates drop out, their supporters will tend to vote for the leaders. [6] Theorists have identified two types of political momentum, piecemeal and all-at-once, with different impacts on front-runners and those right behind them. [7] Secondly, political parties wish to avoid the negative publicity from a brokered convention, which has turned the nominating conventions from the rough-and-tumble affairs to the infomercial-type occasions they are today. [8] Thus, a candidate nominated from the brokered convention will be seen as weak and must climb additional hurdles to gain election.
So there you guys fans, this could be going right up to the conventions. Stay tuned to this site for more information in the months to come.
Remember I told you a Thompson-Romney ticket could be possible. Also a Clinton-Edwards ticket.
