Bread & circuses - possible 'brokered' 1996 Republican convention - Column

National Review, March 11, 1996 by Kate O'Beirne

SOME conservatives in a quiet Washington are watching the presidential primaries with a sense of despair, but others have permitted themselves a dose of wishful thinking and are talking in whispered tones about the prospect of a brokered convention to choose the nominee. It would be the first one since Wendell Willkie was picked on the sixth ballot in 1940. Even these wishful thinkers grant that an open convention in San Diego is unlikely. Morton Blackwell, one of the GOP's most seasoned strategists, dismisses all talk of a brokered convention because experience tells him that a kind of 'law of the lemmings' operates in primaries: 'As soon as one candidate creates a widely perceived win psychology, too many people will jump on his bandwagon for fear of being left behind.' He argues that present-day candidates run national campaigns and so brokered conventions belong to a bygone era of regional candidates and favorite sons.

Yet this year's unique circumstances and candidates increase the possibility that no one will be able to secure the 996 delegates needed to win the nomination. A number of candidates have the ability to go the distance and each of them enjoys the support of distinct factions within the party. Bob Dole has the party support and funding to contest in every state, Pat Buchanan is a man on a mission and his enthusiastic grassroots supporters can deliver delegates (California?), Steve Forbes's message and money could be focused in key states to win his share of the votes (Arizona, New York, Maryland?), and Lamar Alexander hopes that his moderate, 'none of the above' appeal will grow through the end of March.

Another important circumstance is the astonishing weakness of all the contenders combined. The very low turnout in the Iowa caucuses seems to indicate that building a field doesn't ensure the crowd will come. And there's no shortage of Republicans worried about the ability of any of the present candidates to defeat Bill Clinton. But there's an even deeper structural problem with the field. Brokered conventions happen when each candidate is opposed by a majority of the party. That's true of Buchanan, Forbes, Alexander, and potentially Dole. Whenever it looks like a candidate could break out from the pack, a majority could form to 'stop Buchanan' (or whomever).

The trouble with this scenario is that it is hard to form a majority movement to stop the man in the middle -- in this case, Dole -- because the coalition against him may be too unprincipled to hang together. Furthermore, these shifting majorities would have to form and re-form in a very short period of time. Following the New Hampshire primary, the candidates left standing will be 'riding the rapids' as 32 states select over 60 per cent of the delegates in the next five weeks. Nevertheless, the open convention conspirators believe that the GOP establishment, social conservatives, supply-siders, and moderates could fail to rally behind a single candidate and so delegates remain split among three or four contenders.

If GOP factions remain split and a strong front-runner doesn't quickly emerge, a few favorite sons could get a case of the nerves and elect to keep their options open until San Diego. Governors intent on nominating the strongest possible candidate in a year with the potential for an historic political alignment could elect to run themselves in order to hold their states' delegates until San Diego. The GOP convention would then become very interesting.

An open convention, in which no candidate had united economic and social conservatives, would be open to a number of appeals. Proven winners like John Engler of Michigan and Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin would seem like natural choices to those who want to win above all else. In addition, they are almost as conservative as most of the delegates. These small-government, pro-life officeholders could appear safe, if uninspiring, to a party which had been in turmoil for the months leading up to the convention. They would also enjoy broad support in back rooms from their fellow governors, now a force to be reckoned with in GOP circles.

Others would see an opportunity for heavyweights who decline to run this year, like Jack Kemp and Bill Bennett, to reenter the race. But Kemp and Bennett, as supporters of Proposition 187, would not be hot favorites in a convention held in San Diego, only a runner's mile from the Mexican border. And both Buchanan supporters and other social conservatives would be deeply suspicious of old favorites like Bennett who allied himself with moderate Lamar Alexander, or Kemp who has all but abandoned their message in recent years.

The delegates could call on a reliable Reaganite like former Senator Bill Armstrong of Colorado, who combines Christian-Right principles with Reagan's easy-going charisma. Although he'd suffer from being unknown to many delegates, he'd enjoy Forbes's outsider appeal and is a religious conservative with impeccable small-government credentials.