A few days ago, everyone was predicting that Mitt Romney would have the nomination sewed up by the time of the Florida primary.\u00a0 The theory was that he would have won Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina and would be the inevitable nominee.\u00a0 The problem is that he didn\u2019t actually win in Iowa, although he came extremely close.\u00a0 Now Newt Gingrich has won South Carolina.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t expect Gingrich to run away with this..\u00a0 The Romney campaign is about to take the gloves off and those boys have a well-deserved reputation for playing political hardball.\u00a0 So far, whenever anyone looks like a winner, someone else surges past.\u00a0 It looks like a majority of Republicans don\u2019t want Romney and a majority don\u2019t want Gingrich.\u00a0 Ron Paul and Rick Santorum are just clogging up the middle going nowhere.\u00a0<\/p>\n
How can we possibly predict this?\u00a0 Most of us thought Gingrich was dead and buried last summer.\u00a0 Romney looked more and more like the best of a bad lot.\u00a0 All we know right now is that Pawlenty, Cain, Bachmann, Huntsman and Perry are gone.\u00a0 But there are a lot of signs that \u201cnone of the above is the candidate of choice.\u201d <\/em><\/strong>\u00a0That is why so many people were speculating about a \u201clate entry\u201d candidate.\u00a0 That isn\u2019t going to happen.\u00a0 There just isn\u2019t enough time for anyone to enter the race now and mount a real challenge to either Romney or Gingrich.<\/p>\n But, what if nobody won?\u00a0 What if the primaries are over in early June and no one has enough delegates to win the nomination.\u00a0 That is exactly what happened in 1976, a little over 35 years ago.\u00a0 Gerald Ford had more delegates than Ronald Reagan, but not enough to win.\u00a0 Reagan might even have pulled off getting the nomination, but he foolishly selected Richard Schweiker as his potential VP.\u00a0 Schweiker was a liberal, and rather than gaining moderate support, Reagan lost conservative support.\u00a0 Ford was nominated on the first balled.\u00a0 But, for all practical purposes, it was still a brokered convention.<\/p>\n Sarah Palin has the best political instincts in the Republican Party.\u00a0 She did not endorse Newt Gingrich.\u00a0 What she actually said was the following:<\/p>\n \u00a0If I were a South Carolinian \u2014 and each one of these primaries and caucuses are different, Sean \u2014 I want to see this thing continue because iron sharpens iron. Steel sharpens steel. These guys are getting better in their debates. \u2026 If I had to vote in South Carolina, in order to keep this thing going, I\u2019d vote for Newt. And I would want things to continue. More debates, more vetting of candidates. Because we know the mistake made in our country four years ago, with having a candidate that was not vetted to the degree he should have been<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Read carefully.\u00a0 She would vote for Newt, not because she necessarily wanted him to win, but rather because she wanted to prolong the process. \u00a0Perhaps Sarah has figured out that if no one wins, she wins.\u00a0 At a minimum, she is going to be a major king maker.\u00a0<\/p>\n There is no shortage of \u201cdraftable\u201d candidates like Rudy Giuliani, Mitch Daniels, Sarah Palin, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, Paul Ryan and even Jeb Bush.\u00a0 None of them are currently running, but none of them have said they wouldn\u2019t take the job. We started out with Tim Pawlenty, Herman Cain, Michelle Bachmann, Jon Huntsman, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich.\u00a0 All of them spent millions campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire.\u00a0 Wouldn\u2019t it be a stitch if after all that time, money and effort the result was a loud:\u00a0 \u201cnone of the above\u201d<\/strong> decision?<\/p>\n I am not predicting this, but it looks a lot more possible today than it did yesterday.<\/p>\n TDM<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A few days ago, everyone was predicting that Mitt Romney would have the nomination sewed up by the time of the Florida primary.\u00a0 The theory was that he would have won Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina and would be … Continue reading