A New America Series - 2004 Republican Convention

[Maxwell]

A New America Series - 2004 Republican Convention

With Romney, Brownback, and Cheney releasing their delegates with no endorsement, there is no candidate with a majority of the delegates. It comes down to Minority Whip John Kasich, Governor Gary Johnson, and Senator H. Ross Perot JR. John Kasich is a party hack, though he has been fairly effective even as the party spent a large amount of his leadership time in the minority. Kasich calls for a strong national defense, lower taxes, and taking the fight to the Democrats on the subject of abortion. A lot of party leaders prefer Kasich to the two insurgent candidates. Governor Gary Johnson has a broadly libertarian platform - a flat tax, ending Government subsidized healthcare, reducing the size of government, and putting the Pentagon on a diet. He supports abortion rights and gay rights, which has become a major wedge that the anti-gay Kasich has used. Senator H. Ross Perot Jr. takes a lot of his fathers stands, the populism, the anti-trade, but has watered them down in the hopes that will take the nomination. He's also more socially conservative than his father and has embraced the religion angle more than his father, hoping his great relationship with Former Senator Rick Santorum and Governor Mike Huckabee, two coveted endorsements in the religious right, propel him with that segment of the party that doesn't really have a savior.

24 Hours to settle this mess.

[Maxwell]

Kasich edges Perot in the second round, and with Johnson's delegates falling evenly, Kasich ends up with the nomination, upsetting the coalition that Perot had built.