By David Pietrusza
Increasingly loud and nervous chatter about a possible — perhaps even a likely — brokered 2012 Republican National Convention mandates a gander back at what had previously been surmised to be a political species as extinct as the fabled bull moose: the phenomenon of national conventions that dare to proceed beyond the now-seemingly obligatory rush to first-ballot judgment.
Since 1952′s Democratic draft of Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson, nary a solitary major party convention has necessitated even as much as a second ballot. The erudite egghead Stevenson registered a third-ballot victory — but even then, just barely, with a mere 50.2% of the vote.
Other relatively recent brokered nominations include that of ill-fated New York GOP Governor Thomas E. Dewey (third ballot in 1948), dark horse Democrat-turned-Republican utilities industry attorney Wendell Willkie (sixth ballot in 1940) and the then-untested New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt (fourth ballot in 1932). Missouri United States Senator Harry S. Truman failed to secure his 1944 vice presidential nomination until massive second-round vote-shifting (i.e., arm-twisting).
Two structural factors not only allowed but previously favored such feverish wheeling-and-dealing.
Increasingly loud and nervous chatter about a possible — perhaps even a likely — brokered 2012 Republican National Convention mandates a gander back at what had previously been surmised to be a political species as extinct as the fabled bull moose: the phenomenon of national conventions that dare to proceed beyond the now-seemingly obligatory rush to first-ballot judgment.
Since 1952′s Democratic draft of Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson, nary a solitary major party convention has necessitated even as much as a second ballot. The erudite egghead Stevenson registered a third-ballot victory — but even then, just barely, with a mere 50.2% of the vote.
Other relatively recent brokered nominations include that of ill-fated New York GOP Governor Thomas E. Dewey (third ballot in 1948), dark horse Democrat-turned-Republican utilities industry attorney Wendell Willkie (sixth ballot in 1940) and the then-untested New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt (fourth ballot in 1932). Missouri United States Senator Harry S. Truman failed to secure his 1944 vice presidential nomination until massive second-round vote-shifting (i.e., arm-twisting).
Two structural factors not only allowed but previously favored such feverish wheeling-and-dealing.
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