Brokered Convention

Even though few delegates have been awarded and Rick Santorum only has 4 himself, the talk of the Internet is a brokered convention.

It's highly unlikely.

It's important to know how delegates are selected. Delegates used to be party insiders, big donors, and politicians who'd make decisions in secret smoke filled rooms. That doesn't happen anymore, especially since you aren't going to find too many convention halls that allow smoking. Delegates are largely selected through primaries and caucuses. This year, roughly 1,930 of the 2,286 delegates will be selected this way. These delegates are bound to vote for who won them. For the most part, the delegates are selected by the campaigns. The campaigns will submit a list of names to the secretary of state, in primary states, or party leadership, in caucus states. If the candidate wins the delegates, then the person on their submission is a delegate.

This person could be anyone, as long as they live within the jurisdiction where the delegate is awarded from. In California, 3 delegates are awarded for each congressional district, so each campaign must submit three delegates and three alternates for each congressional district. These people have no loyalty to the party. In many states there is no party registration, so they don't have to be Republican there. They're likely loyal only to the candidate.

Some unbound delegates will be bound by the convention, but there could be 300+ unbound delegates. The nomination fight could be so close that 50 or 75 delegates going one way or another could decide things. But they'll be deciding between the top two candidates and no one else.

In 2008, I was one such person, as my name was on a list the McCain campaign submitted to the California Secretary of State. At the time my name was submitted, I'd volunteered on one campaign, knew no one affiliated with the country or state parties, and I'd never donated enough to anyone to be listed on Opensecrets.org. When I went to the convention, I was going to vote for John McCain and no one else.

If I am a delegate this year, I'll approach it the same way. I'm obligated to vote for whoever I represent and won't be switching to someone else, unless my candidate releases me from that obligation. Even in the event that no one has the majority.

First, this is my candidate, the one I believe in. So why would I jump to someone else? Second, I'd have an obligation to my congressional district and my candidate that I'd vote a certain way. Finally, I don't think nominating a candidate who the public hasn't voted for and hasn't been vetted by them is a good idea. I'm not leaving Tampa feeling proud of myself that I got to decide the candidate and who cares what everyone else thinks? If we want a candidate people will vote for in November, the Republican Party can't just throw someone at the public and tell them that we didn't care about their input before but do now.

I'm sure some people will object and say that Mitt Romney isn't as good a candidate as Paul Ryan. I need to put the good of the party first. It's not up to me to decide what the good of the party is. It's up to the millions of primary voters. And I'm not going to usurp that authority.

If Mitt Romney has 1,100 delegates and Rick Santorum has 800, while Gingrich and Paul have another 300, either Romney or Gingrich will get the nomination. The delegates will stick with the person who put them there.