A Brokered Convention?

With Mitt Romney pulling out a win yesterday in Michigan and Rudy poised to make off with Florida, it looks like we might still have a crowded field by Mega Tuesday, or Super Tuesday, or whatever lame name the media has come up with for the weirdness that passes for our system of nominating presidential candidates. It looks like no fewer than four Republican primary winners will still be standing on February 5th, the day umpteen states go to the polls to try and sort out this mess.

On the Democratic side, if John Edwards wins in Nevada and shows well in South Carolina we will have three viable candidates still in play on Whopper Mega Super Crazy Tuesday.

I used to feel the condensed primary season was an unholy mess. Conventional wisdom has it that it leaves the candidates little time to do the "hand-shaking" and "door to door" salesmanship the populous deserves. Moreover, the process doesn't properly "vett" the candidates the way it did in the old days, when the primary season was spread over several months.

Hogwash. A contracted primary schedule makes it more likely that lots of candidates will grab lots of delegates, but none of them enough to form a majority. That means brokered conventions, and that is manna from heaven to a political junkie like me.

I fully expect both conventions to feature illogical back-room deals, delicious backstabbing, heated floor arguments resulting in fisticuffs between Betty from St. Louis and Marge from Nashville, and interminable votes on into the night. Then, at the end of the day, the Dems will come out of left field with a Gore-Hillary ticket and the Repubs will come out of right with Jeb Bush teamed with Giuliani. Best of all, none of the media talking heads will be able to tell us exactly what happened, or why.

Then a Bloomberg-McCain ticket can jump into the fray and we'll have us a good, old-fashioned brawl of a general election. I can hardly wait. This could be the most entertaining election season of my lifetime. Remember, you read it here first.