Republican Psychodrama

At just over the halfway point, the Republican Party primaries are still far from having delivered their verdict. The duel between Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney continues to be very close, despite Romney’s very clear victory in Illinois on March 20. As a result, it is not ruled out that the candidate to face Obama in November will be nominated only at the national convention in Tampa, Florida at the end of August — a scenario that has not happened since 1976. That year, Ford defeated Ronald Reagan…

In theory, this convention is just a formality. It merely confirms the selection of the candidate who emerges victorious in the primaries in all U.S. states (the last will take place on June 26 this year, in Utah). However, Romney, the clear favorite, is having the greatest difficulty in arousing the enthusiasm of the party base; therefore, many observers feel he will not get the 1,144 delegates required. According to an unofficial count, he currently totals 563, against 263 for Santorum and 135 for Newt Gingrich. Approximately 1,400 delegates will be allocated during the 20 remaining primaries still to be disputed. The only certainty is that Santorum will not reach the magic number of 1,144 delegates. He is reduced to hoping that the withdrawal of Gingrich will work in his favor, which would allow him to double Romney at the last possible moment in Tampa. We can only imagine that how high the tension at the convention would be.

Numbers game

Historically vague, the Republican primary this year has turned into an intricate numbers game as a result of the complex rules for allocation of representatives (for example, 69 in Illinois). During the convention, some of them do not in fact have to vote for the leading candidate for the primary in their respective states! Will Santorum benefit from this archaism of American democracy? In any case, he has just hired a specialist in electoral rules. His dream? At the final moment, to convince 500 delegates who did not intend to vote for him.

This would be the worst case scenario for the Grand Old Party, who would then have little more than two months to rally behind their champion. Great figures of the party, like John McCain, are worried. In November 1976, admittedly within a very different context, Ford was defeated by Democrat Jimmy Carter…