Brokering A Convention

Here I sit all broken hearted,

Tried to poop but only farted

So today I took a chance

Saved a dime and pooped my pants

— Unknown

Somebody’s gotta go back and get a shitload of dimes!

— Blazing Saddles

Not really being at a loss for putting things into context by way of a good metaphor, I’m going to take this time to discuss the premise of a brokered convention.

Did you notice my reference to dimes in the two quotes I listed above?

Do you know why? That’s alright. You will.

The Republican primaries traipse on, tranche after tranche as they endeavor to thicken the miasma of the American political process. In the meantime, TOTUS & The Symbiant sit there waiting for the GOP to self-immolate.

Now that I’ve gotten all of the big words out and in the open, let’s talk politics.

Isn’t it great to be American?

In recent weeks, there’s been talk that the Republican convention this summer could turn into a brokered convention.

That’s not to be confused with a broker controlled conversion. They’re two completely different concepts and as an employee within the financial services industry, I admonish you not to make that confusion again.

Just to be clear, “brokered convention” =/= “broker controlled conversion”.

As I understand it, a brokered convention happens when no one single candidate can collect a sufficient number of delegates in the primary process to win the party nomination on the first round of voting at the convention. As a result, the smoke filled rooms open up for negotiation to come up with a nominee. Delegates previously captured through the primary process are no longer pledged to the first candidate they voted for.

When all is said and done, the nominee coming out of the convention could be one that didn’t even bother to campaign throughout the primary process.

Isn’t it great to be American?

If the GOP nominee ultimately results from the process of a brokered convention, consider the fact that the GOP has just saved and dime and pooped it’s pants.

Understand at this point that the best candidates for the GOP nomination have already left the race due to their inability to raise funds early, capture delegates early, and drive their message home amongst the electorate.

Understand that the incumbent can handily be beat in a landslide.

Do you really understand the fight within the GOP though?

It boils down to the establishment trying to keep power against a more conservative minded bunch.

The establishment is fine with an Obama re-election on the hopes they can capture the Senate.

The conservative minded bunch does not accept that premise and knows we as a whole can do better.

Now tell me people.

What kind of compromise between those two lines of thought could come out of the convention and go on to win the White House?

I’m all for getting Obama out of office, but listen up people. Voting under the flag of “Anybody But Obama” isn’t going to do the trick.

There’s a great scene in the movie Blazing Saddles where a whole herd of the bad guys are riding through the prairie on their way to kill the good guys. In the process, they’re stopped by a toll booth which has been put out in the middle of nowhere. Instead of dismantling the toll booth or just going around it, the group mentality prevails with the plan to go get a load of dimes in order to pay the toll. They failed to think outside of the box.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbWg-mozGsU]

The GOP is not thinking outside of the box in order to identify a way to deliver a massive electoral defeat to the DNC in 2012.

If they were, your Google search for the term “brokered convention” wouldn’t have landed you here where you could watch a clip from Blazing Saddles. I’ve hijacked search terms before (namely “Lipton Green Tea” and “Constitutional Convention”), and I’m guessing I’ll do it with this post too.

So what about the dimes?

First of all, Franklin Roosevelt is on the dime. He was the last nominee to come out of a brokered convention and win the presidency. Roosevelt, of course, was one of the trail blazers for getting this country in the mess it’s in today.