If Ron Paul were to win the Republican nomination, a large sector of the republican electorate would be passionately opposed to Paul on their number one issue: the war on terror. I don't think they would accept defeat.
Given how much the neoconservatives and Ron Paul differ on their policies on this issue, the neocons might splinter off and run their own candidate, despite not having the nominal support of the republican party.
It will probably be a Giuliani-Romney ticket. Here's why.
They're the most viable Republicans in the general election. They have the most money, and are leading in the polls. I think that McCain is too loyal to the republican party on principle to not support the nominee, regardless of who it is. Giuliani and Romney are also very similar to each other. They're both from the northeast; they both have liberal records on social issues. One would want to include the other in his ticket so that the other wouldn't run and divide the vote.
But again, there is a problem. Given their liberal records on social issues, a Giuliani-Romney ticket would not adequately represent the evangelical vote. Mike Huckabee would jump in to fill this void.
Even though in theory a Romney-Huckabee ticket or a Giuliani-Huckabee ticket would have wider appeal, they wouldn't work out well in practice. In the former ticket, there's nothing stopping Giuliani from running on his own; in the latter there's nothing stopping Romney from running on his own, thus dividing up the conservative vote. The purpose of the primary process is to prevent this from happening by excluding all but one candidate in a given field. (This is especially important in a first-past-the-post election system like ours.) But if Paul were to win the nomination, then a lot of conservatives would view the '08 primary as illegitimate. As a result, there would be a sort of electoral anarchy. In such an environment, it makes sense for the strongest candidates to unite to defeat the weaker ones. In this case, I believe they are Giuliani and Romney.
So as a result, we'd have an election with a lot of choices. Sounds good to me!
This is just a theory. I'm not that confident that it would actually happen, but it is interesting.
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3 comments:
Excellent post. I might think there'd be less competition between Giuliani and Romney in a post-Paul-nomination election. They'd probably settle who'd run in some smoky back-room filled with neo-repiblicans -- one of them would pay off the other not to run.
McCain too loyal? LOL
McCain has previously jumped out of the republican party once already.
You sure about that? I haven't been able to confirm your claim.
Anyway, like, I said, this is just a theory. I do think McCain is more of a man of his word than the other (non-paul) candidates. He usually sticks to his principles even when its not in his political interests to do so. He has said that he would support the republican nominee no matter what.
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