A Dream For Fredheads

An interesting article written by Steven Stark today in which he muses that the GOP may very well be headed to a brokered convention if McCain loses Florida:

If McCain loses in Florida, the Republicans may well be headed to a deadlocked race and convention. And history teaches us that the likeliest candidate to emerge in that scenario is someone like Warren G. Harding: the prototypical, less-than-stellar candidate to which conventions turn when the going gets rough.

This year’s Harding? Believe it or not (are you sitting down?), despite the fact that he’s withdrawn from the race, is Fred Thompson.

He goes into the history of Harding, who was supposedly chosen in a back room to be the nominee after some lackluster showing in the earlier states:

In Montana, Harding challenged the front-runners and finished fifth with less than three percent of the vote, and then withdrew from New Jersey because he was already running out of money. He barely held his own state of Ohio as a favorite son. In neighboring Indiana — deemed a must-win by Harding because he had the support of both senators — he failed to win a single county and finished a very weak fourth.

In fact, Harding’s showings were so atrocious that he had to be continually convinced not to drop out of the race by his advisors. Sound familiar?

But as the convention approached and no one was near the number required for nomination, Harding had two huge advantages over the other candidates, even though they had proven themselves far bigger vote getters. He looked and sounded like a president. And, much more important, no one disliked him nor had any strong reason to oppose him.

That, in fact, is the key to winning a race that deadlocks. And, this year, it is Thompson’s ace in the hole.

Think about it: the GOP establishment is scared to death of Huckabee, the outsider who has the allegiance of the evangelicals. The only way he’s going to get nominated is if he can win a majority of delegates in the primaries. Ditto for Giuliani: his personal life, social liberalism, and New York background make it unlikely that he can win the GOP nomination any other way than through the primaries (which, unless he can win Florida, is a long shot).

McCain? The GOP establishment and mainstream Republican voters have never really trusted this maverick, either, given his sponsorship of the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance legislation, his friendship with Democrats such as John Kerry, and his current stance on immigration. McCain can win over a few stray delegates committed elsewhere. But unless he’s close to a majority as the convention approaches, he’s unlikely to be the acceptable second choice of most delegates.

Romney? Parts of the GOP establishment (i.e., the National Review crowd and Rush Limbaugh) like him, but he has the highest negatives of any candidate in the race. Evangelicals don’t trust him, perhaps unfairly. And the other candidates can’t stand him, which, if a deadlock should occur, will hardly leave him the likely beneficiary of any efforts they might make on someone else’s behalf.

That leaves Fred.

Steven argues that he has always been the establishments choice, and I agree. While its fun to speculate about a brokered convention, I doubt it will come to pass.

But for us Fredheads who understand the man was the only true conservative in the race it sure is nice to dream.