H/T: Duane Patterson over at HughHewitt.com
Duane
has an interesting theory about the roll of Newt Gingrich in this
election cycle and points out that if a clear leader does not emerge
from the Republican primary, we could end up with a brokered Republican
convention. He further suggests that such a scenario could result in a
figure like Newt Gingrich riding in to save the day.
Very
quietly, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is meddling in the GOP
primary field. A couple of weeks ago, there was a press release that
indicated Rick Tyler, long time communications director for Gingrich,
was taking a leave of absence from his day job, and helping out the
communications effort for Mike Huckabee.Mark Levin over on The
Corner writes today that Newt and Dick Morris are both helping the
Arkansas populist former governor, Newt behind the scenes, Morris
publicly. The question is why is Newt doing this?When the
Tyler move became public, the theory developed that Newt still
envisions himself running for the presidency, but didn’t think this
cycle was the right time to run because of the aura of invincibility of
Hillary Clinton. Newt would then benefit by helping out the perceived
weakest of the GOP candidates, ensuring that come January ‘09, the
Republicans would begin their four year wandering through the desert.
This would set up Newt as the White Knight in 2012, riding to the
rescue after President Hillary screwed things up in her first term.But
after Iowa last night, another theory is beginning to develop.
Hillary’s aura of invincibility is no longer there. Barack Obama is
now the frontrunner, and although very charismatic, he’s an empty suit,
especially when it comes to foreign policy. Newt may now be thinking
that there’s a window of opportunity this cycle. All that needs to
take place is for Huckabee to take a couple of the early states, Rudy
take a couple of the big states, McCain maybe taking a state here or
there, and Romney to take a couple, and you have yourself a brokered
convention. If the Republicans can’t decide on a clear frontrunner by
the convention, could we potentially see the White Knight riding in a
little earlier than expected into Minneapolis/St. Paul this September?
Interesting
(especially for us political junkies), but unlikely. The last time the
Republicans had a brokered convention was 1948. The last time the
Democrats had one was in 1952. In each case, that party lost the
election. Remember, a brokered convention is not the result of several
candidates sharing similar levels of support, but rather having won
similar numbers of delegates. Since delegate allocation is not
directly proportional to support, and most states allocate delegates
through some variation of a winner-take-all approach, even candidates
who finish a close second in a few key states will find themselves with
a severe shortage of delegates come convention time.
Ed Morrissey over at Captain’s Quarters offered his take on such a scenario back in December.
Sat, Jan 5, 2008
The Political Arena