As what has in some ways been the strangest presidential election in modern U.S. history continues to unfold, the television talking heads continue to throw the terms “contested” or “brokered” Republican convention around as if everyone in the country understands those terms.
It’s clear that most Americans have a vague idea, but the specific mechanics are lost on most people.
A “brokered” or “contested” convention results if no Republican – say current frontrunner Donald Trump – can win an outright majority of delegates prior to the first vote by delegates at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland this summer.
It takes 1,237 delegates to win the Republican nomination. Delegates are chosen by different methods – some primaries are “winner take all” meaning the candidate with the most votes gets every delegate available in that primary.
Other primaries result in delegates being awarded on a proportional basis, with the leader getting the most delegates and the losers getting proportional numbers according to how they placed.
The process binds delegates to vote on the first convention ballot for the candidate that won their primary on the basis that the first-vote delegate status was awarded. If no candidates can get to 1,237 on the first ballot, then the convention changes from a coronation to a free-for-all that is – in great measure – settled away from the glare of the TV lights.
In other words, the delegates after the first vote are “unbound” and the wheeling and dealing commences. The second ballot commences, then the third, then the fourth, until one candidate can cobble together the winning number of delegates to earn the party’s nomination.
But that’s the very basic definition of what happens in a brokered convention. Perhaps the most important factor is the convention rules and the ability of the party to change those rules. Changing the rules can bring about political cataclysm as well – and perhaps launch third party or rump group candidates outside the traditional GOP footprint.
Mississippians have been part of national political party convention squabbles before. Mississippi Democrats split badly between the so-called “Regular” Democrats and the “Freedom Democrats” in 1964 in a battle over delegate legitimacy that represented a real danger to Lyndon Johnson’s ability to win the South.
Mississippi Republicans split badly in 1976 over delegate loyalty to President Gerald Ford and a former actor named Ronald Reagan.
After assuming the presidency following the 1974 resignation of President Richard Nixon in the depths of the Watergate scandal, Ford began in 1975 to seek the 1976 Republican nomination for president that would culminate at the Kansas City GOP National Convention.
In Mississippi, Reagan had earlier won support from Clarke Reed, then-state Sen. Charles Pickering of Laurel and Jackson oilman W.D. “Billy” Mounger. Ford was supported by then-U.S. Rep. Thad Cochran, 1975 Mississippi gubernatorial nominee Gil Carmichael of Meridian and then-Jackson City Commissioner Doug Shanks.
But when Reagan chose liberal Pennsylvania U.S. Sen. Richard Schweiker as his running mate, Reed defected to the Ford camp and other Mississippi delegates would follow.
Nationally, the Ford-Reagan battle for the nomination was almost dead even and both candidates began to scour the country for uncommitted delegates to the convention.
Because of the so-called “unit rule” – which required that the candidate who had the support of the majority of the state’s 30 delegates got all 30 votes – a procedural vote on a Reagan-backed convention rules change was the showdown vote.
Mississippi’s 30 votes went against the rules change and Reagan’s bid for the nomination was effectively dead in 1976.
The common denominator in brokered conventions? Somebody always, always leaves with the feelings hurt. In the Mississippi examples I cited, some of those political wounds inflicted during those contested conventions never really healed.
Certainly, that could very well be the likeliest outcome in a 2016 brokered GOP convention.
Sid Salter is a syndicated columnist. Contact him sidsalter@sidsalter.com