What if the (Republican) Party Doesn’t Decide?

[phantom power]

This is totally tangent to this article, but I'm fascinated at this continuing theme among political pundits of basically discounting Trump, because ... I'm not sure why. Mostly I think it is the "argument from incredulity" fallacy. Trump must eventually lose the primary, because... he's Donald fucking Trump, fer chrissakes.

I myself feel far from sure of that.

Attempting to put Trump’s ongoing lead in the polls in historical perspective, Julia Azari makes an important point:

On a related note, the previous establishment-insurgent contests had a defined set of party heirs. Taft and Truman were incumbent presidents; Humphrey was the vice president. We can hardly cast the current contest as a clash between the establishment and insurgent candidates because there is no clear establishment favorite. We can call this the “Jeb Bush (Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, once Scott Walker but not now, maybe John Kasich), you’re no William Howard Taft” phenomenon. Since the policy-demanders school of nominations thought is based on the idea that elites can resist attempts at insurgency, perhaps the lack of agreement on a candidate is part of the story about why this theory may not hold, or at least has not predicted what we’ve so far observed.

One reason to be skeptical of the The Party Decides thesis is that — especially given the small n of competitive contemporary presidential primaries — it’s hard to disentangle ex ante elite support from the quality of a candidate and a campaign. It’s not clear to what extent elite support is a cause rather than a symptom of a winning campaign. (Cf. Hillary Clinton.) As multiple critics have noted, the book never really establishes a compelling causal mechanism. But even if we assume arguendo that ex ante elite support has the causal impact the thesis seems to assume, it’s not clear what this tells us about the 2016 GOP race.

Consider the 538 endorsement primary. Jeb! Bush, fer Chrissakes, still leads a heavily divided field, even though he’s run a poor campaign and his polling has been on a downward trajectory from a non-impressive peak for a while. Rubio isn’t very far ahead of the fringe candidates Christie and Huckabee. Party elites — at least as imperfectly measured by this proxy — may know they don’t want Trump, but there’s nothing remotely resembling a consensus on what Option Establishment should be.

In other words, I’m not sure what it would mean to say that the party “decided” the 2016 Republican primary. It has long been obvious to me that Rubio is the best candidate Republicans have for the general election, but it evidently doesn’t matter what I think. For whatever reason, like Republican primary voters, Republican elected officials and money men have warmed up to Rubio very slowly, and very possibly too slowly. I still think it’s more likely that it’s Cruz rather than Trump who’s the most likely to take advantage of this vacuum — Cruz is the biggest beneficiary of the collapse of the Carson “campaign” because it opens the door for him in Iowa — although I can’t rule out Trump altogether. But not only is it uncertain that party elites will be able to clear the field if they want to, it’s hard to see how they’re can be winnowing when party elites can’t decide which candidate they favor. Even if they do eventually coalesce around Rubio, it might be too late. And a lot of anti-Trump elected officials and fundraisers might just skip the middleman and hold their noses for Cruz if he wins Iowa like I expect.

http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2015/12/what-if-the-party-doesnt-decide

[librechik]

1. this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brokered_convention

"In United States politics, a brokered convention is a situation in which no single candidate has secured a pre-existing majority of delegates (whether those selected by primary elections and caucuses, or superdelegates) prior to the first official vote for a political party's presidential candidate at its nominating convention.

Once the first ballot, or vote, has occurred, and no candidate has a majority of the delegates' votes, the convention is then considered brokered; thereafter, the nomination is decided through a process of alternating political horse-trading, and additional re-votes.[1][2][3][4] In this circumstance, all regular delegates (who, previously, may have been pledged to a particular candidate according to rules which vary from state to state) are "released," and are able to switch their allegiance to a different candidate before the next round of balloting. It is hoped that this 'freedom' will result in a re-vote resulting in a clear majority of delegates for one candidate.

Superdelegate votes are counted on the first ballot. Although the term "brokered convention" is sometimes used to refer to a convention where the outcome is decided by superdelegate votes rather than pledged delegates alone, this is not the original sense of the term. Like a brokered convention, the potentially decisive role played by superdelegates can often go against the popular vote from the primaries and caucuses."

There's still hope for Jeb!

[phantom power]

2. is Jeb accumulating superdelegate support?

[librechik]

3. who knows? It's all done behind closed doors. They make up the rules.

I'm just saying that simply because Trump wins the popular vote doesn't mean they have no tools to get rid of him. Republican Party hacks also control the voting machines in many districts, so it's up to the very top Republicans to decide who gets elected. Not People.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2014/10/18/vote-all-you-want-the-secret-government-won-change/jVSkXrENQlu8vNcBfMn9sL/story.html?event=event25

[phantom power]

5. Although I agree they can override any popular polling...

It still seems to me that overriding a candidate who is polling *way* ahead of everybody else (and where "everybody else" is dividing votes such that they're down in to single digits, or barely double digits), would come with enormous political costs. In terms of further alienating the establishment from their own voters, and also just in terms of attempting to elect a candidate without any actual voter support. Voting machine tampering is a real thing, but they aren't (yet) so bold as to hack in numbers with absolutely no relation to voter polling.

It would be effectively be a decision (imo) to go into the election knowing they're going to lose the presidency.

It also assumes Trump won't go 3rd-party, which he's threatened to do. And it's a threat he can absolutely make good on. People keep saying Trump isn't really serious enough to do it. While I certainly don't know what he's thinking, I don't see any actual evidence of non-seriousness from his behavior in this primary.

[librechik]

6. they don't care about the will of the voters. They care about hiding the dirty deed

and pretending it never happens, that our elections are safe and legal.

trump is an odd situation, and I've been expecting the Party to do something about him, but in a brokered convention that can just make him go away. All nice and legal.

If they can't they turn to assassination. That's just the way they are. I'm not going to pretend anymore.

[longship]

4. As long as there is a lot of chair throwing from the floor of the GOP convention...

...I am all in. I am talking about a real floor fight for the nomination, not some Nancy wimp stuff. We're talking real chairs and real throwing, spilling over into the streets and the hotels where we will hopefully witness a defenestration or two (hopefully from a lower floor). The more mayhem, the better.

I hope they can get Angus MacFarquhar as on the scene correspondent.

Maybe we will witness a couple of GOOOOOOOOALS!

Angus McFarquhar