Thursday, November 05, 2015

The GOP Nominating Process-- Still a Lot Up for Grabs!

Karl Rove has written a very interesting commentary in today's Wall Street Journal entitled, The Path to a Wild GOP Convention, about the presidential nominating process for the Republican Party. Subtitled "Primary rules open the possibility that no candidate will win a majority of delegates," it explains how there is still an awful lot up for grabs.

OK. I know some of you are thinking.  What happened to the heartwarming posts about baby showers and family events? Well, those of you who know me also know that I love following politics. Feel free to exit now, if you don't. But I encourage you to keep reading because this will be a very important election. This is our country. And civic responsibility requires that we pay attention to what is going on and that we participate in the process.

Rove points out that this is the largest number of GOP contenders in U.S. history. Wow. So we have no precedent for how this scenario might play out.

Did you know that the Republican Party has a rule requiring that states and territories voting before March 15 must award their delegates proportionally? There are 28 of those. And there are 8 other states that also award their delegates proportionally. According to Rove, some 60% of the convention delegates will be allotted proportionally.

Of these states that award proportionally, some require that a candidate hit a floor of support. That will eliminate some candidates.

Additionally, 8% of delegates are unbound and may vote for the candidate of their choice.

Indeed, Rove makes a good case that we may not have a candidate with a majority of delegates before the opening of the convention.  This could be very interesting.

A lot of variables remain in this nominating process. No candidate is near a majority. There is still a lot that could happen.

For those of us who are not real happy with the state of polling right now, these variables are very encouraging.

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