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Why the Convention Draft Would Not Be an Establishment Figure
Que Katy Perry
Sometimes, I write about stuff that I really know. Here, I’m not. I’m writing without particular knowledge, about betting markets, Nate Silver, and Jonah Goldberg being wrong. Since I think Nate and Jonah are, indisputably, the smartest guys in politics, I’m really asking for people to explain the errors in my thinking.
When pundits talk about a convention draft, they most often raise Speaker Paul Ryan as the example. This just seemed nuts to me (the odds have changed substantially while this is being drafted, but the larger point remains). In good ways and bad, Ryan is at the opposite end of the conservative Republican spectrum to Cruz and Trump. Fivethirtyeight used Ryan as an example of someone that Cruz could beat at the convention; I agree that Cruz could beat him, but I’m not sure why that would be the question. Likewise, Jonah conflated “convention draft” with “establishment figure.” It reminds me somewhat of the “if you’re not with Trump, you’re with Jeb!” claims from earlier in the cycle, except that Nate isn’t a Cruz supporter. PredictIt gave me a bet based on the claim that Ryan had a 15 percent chance to be the nominee, and Romney 5 percent. In the spirit of financial interest declarations, I took out bets against Kasich and Rubio, as well as Ryan and Mitt.
So I have two big questions. Firstly on why am I wrong, such that Ryan is the most likely convention pick if Trump and Cruz fail? Secondly, who do you believe to be the most likely candidates to prevail if Trump and Cruz do not? I should clarify that I’m neither stating that Trump will not make it on the first ballot, nor that Cruz will not make it on the second; there’s a reason that I’m not putting money either way on either of their candidacies. This is just about the “what if” of a potential third ballot. In normal election cycles when there is essentially no chance of a contested convention, there is still speculation about what candidates would emerge from such an outcome. This time, when a contested convention is likely, there appears to be little discussion of possible dark horse candidates.
The rest is my theory of the race, but you can skip it if you’d prefer to explain your draft picks than to read about mine.
Getting to the Drafts
If Trump doesn’t win on the first ballot, I don’t think he’ll be president. He’s not the second choice of any of the Kasich or Rubio delegates I’ve spoken to, and I’d be surprised if he were the second choice of many Cruz delegates. Cruz has apparently successfully worked the system in many states such that states that voted for Trump delegates will have anti-Trump delegates on the second and subsequent ballots. Perhaps more importantly, the RNC delegates are free agents from then on, too, which will reduce Trump’s total significantly. It seems likely that Trump supporters will behave poorly and sour his chances yet further. Even if Kasich came to a deal, I don’t think he could bring many of his delegates with him.
Should Trump fail on the first ballot, it’s an open question whether Cruz will have separated the superficial democratic outcomes (first ballot) from the more involved democratic outcomes (delegates) enough that he wins on the second. If Cruz doesn’t win on the second ballot, it’s still possible that he will win on a subsequent ballot; even if some other candidate comes forward — and it seems likely that any such candidate would capture a substantial portion of the non-Trump, non-Cruz delegates — Cruz could easily be more appealing to some Trump delegates than most others, and he wouldn’t need all that many Trump votes to add to his own. Set against that, many of his late-stage delegates are NeverTrump rather than CruzCrew. Still, it seems very possible that the third or subsequent ballots will see the race go to someone else.
Rule 40 is often presented as preventing this, but that is a misreading of what it says. To get on the ballot, you have to have the support of a majority of delegates from eight states. It should go without saying that if you do not have the majority of delegates from eight states, you’re probably not going to win anyway. You do not have to have the first ballot majority of delegates from eight states. The rule is not intended to select a candidate, but to mitigate the convention vandalism of the Ron Paul crowd. Anyone with a plausible chance should be on the ballot, but if you’re not on the ballot, there should be a limit to how much noise you can make.
The Draft
Unless there’s a massive effort underway to subvert the delegate selection away from both of the leading candidates — which would be hard to keep secret and does not appear to be public — the convention will be dominated by Cruz and Trump delegates, who would be unlikely to pick Ryan. The second most frequently voiced candidate is Romney. Romney and Ryan have both repeatedly disavowed interest in running, but their lack of interest is far from being the most important reason that they ain’t gonna make it. We don’t know the players yet. It seems likely that, if it makes it to the third round, Trump has somewhere between 1000 and 1150 second round delegates (his first round total minus RNC delegates, excepting the sole Trump-supporting RNC delegate, and the anti-Trump delegates elected as Trump delegates) and Cruz has somewhere between maybe 850 and 1236, while there are 168 RNC delegates and a variety of others (Rubio, uncommitted, Kasich, Santorum, etc.). Still, it seems logically necessary that any third or subsequent ballot outcome will involve a nominee who can draw some votes from multiple camps. For party unity, it still seems possible that this would involve an endorsement from candidates who had given up on being the candidate themselves.
Ideally, if it becomes clear that a candidate will win on an upcoming ballot, all the other candidates will endorse them, getting ahead of the story. I’ll continue to hope, although it would be kind of funny if the party ended up better at party unity this cycle than it did last time round.
Carly Fiorina
Pro: Fiorina is an exceptionally popular figure, particularly with the delegate class. She’s purchased a lot of influence through her presidency of the ACU. She’d be likely to beat Clinton. She’s tough, an outsider, and a business leader, which might help her gain some Trump delegates (she has at least one Trump delegate supporter, but I don’t know if my anecdotal evidence here represents something wider). She was the only candidate that the March For Life permitted to speak at their event, and she’s very good at those sorts of set piece speeches. She’s been perhaps Cruz’s finest surrogate, which should help her with Cruz delegates. She’s what passes for moderate in today’s GOP on policy: she was the biggest immigration squish and fence opponent in the primary, which should help her with Kasich delegates.
She’s well liked by the establishment and the support of her biggest fans (McCain, Graham, etc.) could easily make a difference with the RNC crowd. Ryan and Priebus both say, ridiculously, that the race should go to someone who filed for the primaries. Since this has never been the rule with previous contested conventions and only appears to make it more likely that we’ll have more ridiculous candidate filings in the future and hence more 17-40 man fields, I’m led to believe that either Priebus and Ryan are Fiorina fans or they know more about the hopes of the Santorum candidacy than I do.
On a personal note, Fiorina’s manager called me before the Kansas City meetup and left a lengthy voicemail; I gather he got my number off a Ricochet post. I’m not a Fiorina fan, and I never got round to getting back to him before I accidentally deleted the mail, but I was impressed by the level of hustle involved. I’ve had other activists say that they were contacted personally, too, which I haven’t heard from any other campaign.
Con: She hasn’t run a successful race, and it would be difficult for her to win the hardliners while appealing to the moderates. She didn’t particularly shine in the primary. Claims that she’s not invited to Georgetown cocktail parties are weaker than for other candidates.
Senator Mike Lee
Pro: For the Ann Coulter Trump supporters, Lee’s opposition to Trump might be less important than his having been clear and non-slippery in his opposition to amnesty. For Cruz delegates, Lee is almost certainly the most common second choice and was so way before he became the only senator to genuinely endorse Cruz (Graham’s constant stream of insults and total lack of positive statements make his “endorsement” less than genuine).
He’d receive the strong support of Senators Paul and Rubio. Of all the candidates, Lee seems most likely to represent the views of a plurality of voters as expressed in a large Trump/Cruz turnout while being acceptable to non-Trump, non-Cruz supporters. [While this was in draft, Senator Risch endorsed Cruz, but since few have heard of him, I don’t believe the analysis changed].
Con: We’re going to have a problem with conspiracy theorists after the convention because you don’t get to be a convention pick without actual conspiracies. How much worse does that become when the candidate is the second Mormon to be run in a row? Also, Lee has no experience running for anything outside Utah, which isn’t just among the reddest of states, but is also among the most idiosyncratic of states in its incestuous politics.
Perhaps more importantly, Mike Lee has been particularly relentless in his opposition to Trump; the success of any convention draft will depend in part on their ability to gain the endorsement of at least a portion of all the major factions and ideally the candidates. If Trump endorses Lee, I expect that the establishment will have given him something of very great value, and I’m not sure that the establishment likes Lee that much.
Rick Scott
Pro: He’d likely get just about every Trump delegate vote if Trump endorsed him. He’s got a record that appeals to many non-Trump supporters from just about every delegate block. If it looks like he’d be likely to win, I could imagine Cruz endorsing him. I don’t understand the Rubio-Scott relationship, and I don’t know how likely Kasich would be to endorse him, but I’d imagine that they’d both be supportive even if they didn’t explicitly endorse. While Lee seems like the closest thing to a unity candidate in substance, Scott seems like the most likely candidate to be a unity candidate in process, although Carly could get there.
Con: He endorsed Trump. Florida has a lot of crazy stories. He doesn’t have enormous name recognition, so the billion dollars that Clinton would have ready to drop on him would mean that there was a very real risk that he would be defined quickly and effectively as Trump-lite (where “lite” means “with an education that appears visible on TV, some sense of policy language, and such”).
I’d have thought that Governors Pence, Martinez, and — if Kasich does reasonably well — Hogan and Haley, were also more likely than Ryan. Who am I missing? Who shouldn’t be on the list? Why does anyone think that Ryan is plausible?
Published in Politics
Not at all. If I quote what someone says as proof that they are a liar, that is not an appeal to their “sincerity.” It’s the exact opposite of that. If I cite a consistent pattern of narcissistic and self-serving behavior by Trump, that is not an appeal to his “sincerity.” At most, you could say that it is an appeal to the cliche that a leopard does not change its spots.
Wee you looking for us to suggest candidates, James?
Because there an enormous elephant in the room that everyone is forgetting about. He could easily be a consensus candidate that satisfies all wings of the party and lead us to super majorities for at least the next decade
I think we all know who I’m talking about:
George Pataki
Saying he’s narcissistic and self serving isn’t the same thing as saying he’ll run a third party effort. Do you think Cruz will run third party?
Once again Fred flies off the rails!
Vote Gilmore: Right for the GOP, Right for America.
Cruz will not. Absolutely not. Sure thing on that. Cruz is a real Republican, and intends to remain a Republican. Trump has no loyalties other than to himself.
Gilmore? Cmon, be serious, man.
Id like to hear James weigh in on Pataki’s chances.
I had a really good time campaigning with Pataki in New Hampshire. I think his moderate stances would appeal to many Trump supporters, as would his height (he’s a big guy). As a moderate, a guy who would beat Clinton, a governor, and the son of a mailman (really; Kasich wasn’t bragging about a unique qualification), he’d lock up the Kasich block. He campaigned pretty hard for Rubio and bonded with his delegates.
I’d say there was an outside, significantly less than one percent chance, and I recognize you meant it as a joke, but it’s not impossible. Does he get on with Trump? If they were friendly enough it might rise to a one percent chance.
Bartlett for America. As fictional democrats go, he is as good as it gets.
Do you think that Cruz isn’t self serving and narcissistic? Even if Cruz didn’t have loyalty to the party, running as an independent would be obviously dumb. How would he benefit? There is the theory that this whole thing was a pact with Clinton, but you can’t know that to be true. Absent conspiracy theories, how does Trump being a self serving narcissist lead him to a different path than Cruz?
I’ve said it as best I can. Of course, I’m voicing an opinion, not a fact. My opinions, like all opinions are subject to being wrong. I’m basing my opinion on decades of consistent behavior by Trump, and what he himself has said. You may not agree with my opinion, but it seems to me that most GOP veterans are worried about the same thing that I am.
By the way, I think Ricochet would be a less interesting site if people limited themselves to saying “maybe black, maybe white, who knows?” I’m happy to hear other people’s opinions.
The filing deadline to be on Texas ballot passed on May, 9. Any candidate who waits until after the convention (July 18-21) to run third party won’t be on the ballot in Indiana, Nevada, Florida, S. Carolina, N. Carolina, Oklahoma, Georgia, Delaware, and Illinois.
For most other states he would have about two weeks to gather signatures and file.
So no.
I agree with James. Whether he runs on a third party ticket saying nothing about any self serving narcissism. It just means he’s a political realist. It’s unrelated either way to narcissism.
Thats what I have been saying.