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A "Brokered Convention" is kind of like a run-off election. If there is no clear winner on the first round of voting, you have a second round. It differs from a run-off election in that the people casting the votes in the second round are not the whole body of people who voted the first round, but a select group of delegates much more tied to the system which engineered the election to begin with.
For many cycles the Republican establishment in particular manipulated the process against outsider candidates who really wanted to limit government. They did this by encouraging a bevy of candidates who claimed such positions (usually without much basis in fact) into entering the race. The nationalist/traditionalist/limited government vote was divided many ways. The establishment Republican vote was divided few ways because the power brokers got together in advance to pick their candidate. I heard about George W. Bush as a candidate from a Republican county chair while we we still engaged in the previous election cycle.
They still tried to rig the process by getting all of the southern states, save Jeb Bush's Florida, into having their primaries early while the vote was decided on a proportional basis and many candidates would be in the race. Then Jeb Bush or some other globalist big government Republican could clean up by winning 35% of the vote and getting all of the delegates in "winner take all" primaries like Florida and Ohio.
They totally misjudged how fed up the country was with their policies, and the Bush family which has become the personification of it. They did hedge a little bit, in that they let an ambitious young Marco Rubio convince them to use him as a back-up plan if indeed people were tired of the Bushes. When Bush floundered they went to the back-up plan and pushed him relentlessly. But Rubio proved to be "not ready for prime time." Between that and a regional (at best) establishment (Kasich) candidate staying in the race, it was actually the establishment vote that has been divided.
The third thing that they did not plan on was Ted Cruz peeling off just enough of the establishment to raise some serious money while still keeping a substantial amount of the conservative anti-establishment grassroots in his camp. Normally by this time, the conservative challenger is out of cash and has not laid the groundwork for a rapid series of contests in large states.
Then of course there is the Deus Ex Machina Black Swan event that is Donald Trump. Donald Trump is now turning their own plans on their heads. He does not have anywhere near a majority of delegates. He barely has 100 more than Cruz. But until now delegates have been allotted more or less proportionally. We are about to enter a phase where the delegates are awarded by a procedure that the media has been calling "winner take all."
Now Trump is in a position to do what the establishment candidates did to the conservative candidates when McCain and Romney were running: Rack up tremendous delegate leads by winning 100% of the delegates by winning less that 50% (in some cases far less) of the vote. What they are trying to do now is arrange things so that no one gets over half of the delegates. Then it would go to a brokered convention where, if a few more rules get changed, they can get someone more to their liking in there.
This is not as impossible as it sounds. We are far along the process and although Trump has the most delegates of any candidate, he does not have close to half of the delegates. The remaining states are mostly "winner take all" but they also tend to be "closed" events. That is, only registered Republicans can participate. That eliminates the motivated independents that have been bolstering Trump's numbers. Trump comes off as an east coast authoritarian, and that does not play well in Western states. Indeed, except for atypical Nevada, Trump has not won out west. Cruz is stronger once you get away from states that are east of the Mississippi. The "border" states that have one border on the west side of the Mississippi are basically a tie. Trump wins east of that line and Cruz wins west of it.
I started out by saying that brokered convention is a type of run-off election. This gets to the real point I want you to see from this. The establishment media calls states that award all of their delegates to the one with the most votes, even if its not a majority of votes, "winner take all" states. In the general election they call it the "first past the post" method. Same method, different names. In each case the candidate who gets the most votes, even if its not the majority of votes, gets everything at stake, whether its a pile of delegates or a public office. And that's a problem. We should have run-off elections for every office on the ballot, preferably using instant run-off voting.
Why does the establishment want a brokered convention, a sort of run-off albeit one decided by those closer to the system, for itself but expect everyone else to be stuck with a "winner take all" a.k.a. "first past the post" method of determining who wins general elections in November? Any state legislature could change the election laws anytime they wanted. They just don't want to. It is in the interest of the two dominant parties to leave the "first past the post" a.k.a. "winner takes all" system in place in November because it is easier for them to game that system. They can scare people out of choosing a third party out of fear of "splitting the vote" and throwing the election to their least preferred option. They like it because it frightens people into line instead of helping them to vote their conscience. That they have not given us run-offs yet is dishonorable at any time, but never moreso than now, when the establishment of one of the major parties wants a sort of run-off for itself- in particular a run-off where only those most connected to the system get to vote on the second round.
Well said.
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