Actually, It’s a Perfectly Good Reason
As you know, a characteristic, quadrennial ritual of our republic is upon us: breathless speculation, in the face of logic and what is now a lengthy history, that one of the major political parties is heading for a brokered convention. Kevin Drum, who has links to the latest incarnation of the popular (among reporters) delusion, writes
I’ve been discounting this possibility myself, but mostly based on the lazy reasoning that it hasn’t happened for 50 years, so it’s probably not going to happen this year either.
Hey, lazy is effort enough when the answer is within reach! We don’t just have a historical record extending back half a century. We have our knowledge of the causes of that history. Long primary campaigns and divided conventions are not in the perceived interest of the eventual nominee. They lead to hurt feelings among activists and late starts on the general campaign. They delay the all-important tacking to the center. I believe they have financial implications too – money spent early (fighting a difficult primary campaign) is money that can’t be spent late.
So, bad for the winner, no matter who the winner is. That means that it’s bad for the apparat too. The apparat wants to win for all kinds of reasons – they believe in their party’s ideology, to the extent that it has one; they stand to incur a great deal of blame for any loss (like, of, allowing a brokered convention situation to develop); and they got their positions because they are competitive people.
The above also makes a brokered convention bad for the losers. Because the holdouts can expect the faithful to glare accusingly at them too, when it all goes south because of the problems adduced two paragraphs ago. The holdouts also believe in their party’s ideology. You may think the competitiveness factor cuts in the opposite direction for them as for the apparat, but you’d be wrong. The losers have a future, or would like to. They might see themselves in the winner’s cabinet or they might see themselves mounting the winner’s podium four years hence – either way, they have an incentive not to drag out what the smart money begins to insist is a fruitless campaign.
“Brokering” never went away exactly. It’s just as front-loaded as the primary schedule. You still concede defeat and release your delegates, usually with an endorsement of Some Other Guy. But you sure as hell don’t wait until convention week to do it. That would earn you nothing but trouble, and that won’t change, even with increased granularity in primary delegate-awarding.
