Friday, March 23, 2012

By Staying In The Race Gingrich Is Doing What Edwards Should Have Done In 2008







Josh Painter has this article (with further links HERE) up at his "Conservatives with Newt" site


Gingrich: ‘Brand New Players’ Might Emerge At GOP Convention

Newt was interviewed on NPR's "Morning Edition" Wednesday:
Saying that Mitt Romney may not be able to "grind his way toward the nomination" despite a huge fundraising advantage, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told NPR today that he sees no reason to exit the Republican presidential race and that there's a chance of a new contender emerging at the party's convention in August.

"I'm not so sure you wouldn't get a series of brand new players" stepping forward during a brokered convention, he told Morning Edition co-host Steve Inskeep.

Or, he said, he might emerge as the convention's choice. Gingrich said he expects to end the primary season with the third most delegates — with Romney at No. 1 and Rick Santorum at No. 2.

Palin supporters of course relish this prospect and many view Gingrich as a substitute for Palin in the campaign and are voting for him on that basis. Palin has all but formerly endorsed Newt (her husband has of course) and encouraged voters to support him in a number of the primary ballots.


Her supporters do this as they look to a brokered convention and Gingrich throwing his support to her if in the balloting he sees he has no chance of getting the nomination himself. On palin's part she has indicated clearly that in the case of a brokered convention she would be willing to have her name put in nomination.


For this to have any chance of happening then of curse Newt has t continue on in the campaign grinding away at getting as may delegates as possible-fortunately many states have a proportional allocation and although Newt has few  outright winning prospects his second and third place postions will see him continue to gain delegates.


Hopefully if he does stay in and accumulate delegates and Santorum does well the three non-Romney candidates could stop Romney from winning on the first ballot, after which the delegates are free to support whomever they wish and at which point things could get interesting. 


No matter how you slice it Romney is not the prefered candidate of 50%+ of the voters so far and is unlikely to have been by convention time. Thus it is a totally valid exercise for the convention delegates in Tampa to choose the nominee through the balloting process should that option become available.


It is interesting to conjecture as to what may have been the outcome if John Edwards had stayed in the 2008 Democratic party campaign and had accumulated enough delegates to prevent Obama from  winning on the first ballot.If by the time of the convention Obama was not seen as the clear winner, then the super delegates who deserted Clinton at that point may have stuck with her, and it is quite possible she could have emerged from a contested convention as the nominee to who knows what end result.But, again one might conjecture that it would have been a better one, in whichever way the election ended, than what we have now.


By staying in the race Gingrich may be doing an historical service to his party and to the country.

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