A brokered convention for the GOP?

With Mitt Romney unable to establish clear dominance in the Republican primary, the possibility of a brokered convention is under intense discussion.

If none of the candidate reach the magic number of 1144 delegates, the party must find away of convincing delegates to switch from one candidate to another.  In some cases, delegates are bound by law to support whoever had won the concerned race.  However, many delegates and also the super delegates are free to vote for whomever they want.

Currently, with so many southern states in play, there is a strong possibility that Romney may not get enough votes.  He does long strong in some of the states with winner-take-all systems, but most of these races are not until the end of the primary season.

Romney has been only getting from 25 percent to 28 percent of the vote in southern states.  That may not be enough especially if he loses big in Pennsylvania against hometown favorite Rick Santorum or if he fails to win an important winner-take-all state like California.

Some analysts think that if no candidate gets the necessary number of delegates before the convention that everything will be worked out prior to the convention kickoff.  However, this may be wishful thinking. Obviously there are a lot of strong feelings since even when Romney wins in the primary, he is usually taking less than the majority of votes. For example, in the all-important Ohio primary, Romney only picked up 37.9 percent of the votes.

One thing most people agree on is that the lack of a clear winner will work strongly in Barack Obama's favor. Whether the backroom dealing goes on before the beginning of the convention or during it will not probably make much of a difference.  Either way, it will look like the Republicans are not strongly convinced about their nominee.