Quote:
Originally Posted by dyna mo
i wonder how the repubs will play this.. as i understand the party, they historically nominate whomever has paid their party dues and is next up.
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To some degree this is true, but they really wanted Romney last time not McCain, but he jumped out to an early lead. They want to avoid that from happening again with Palin this time so they have changed the rules. It has always been whoever wins a state gets all the delegates for that state. Now they have changed it so that if a state holds their primary election before a certain date the delegates are split up based on the percentage of the vote each candidate gets. This way Palin (or Huckabee or someone like them) can't jump in and win 6-8 of the early bible states and run away from the rest of the group. Now someone like Romney could finish in 2nd or even 3rd place in each of these early states and still be in it and he will just hold out until the election moves out of the bible belt and into the more progressive states.
I think the powers that be want the candidate they feel has the best chance of winning, but right now I don't think they know who that is. The base of the republican party has fractured. The religious right is suddenly fickle and the Tea Party only supports certain types of candidates so it is hard say who they might support in general election and without the support of those groups any candidate they nominate will have a very hard time winning.