The Delegate Fight: 2012

[Bacon King]

are there any issues with allocating delegates by congressional districts in primaries in states where the districts have yet to be drawn/finalized?

I assume the state GOP would make accommodations before the vote. Probably using old CD's (with a different than standard delegate formula if the state won/lost districts after the census), or maybe just picking a specific plan even if it isn't completely adopted yet (e.g., the Texas GOP would probably just pick the legislature's plan over the court's plan, if things somehow still weren't finalized by their primary).

[Bacon King]

If Dick Morris says that Romney will end up with 1298 delegates, then either Romney isn't getting a majority or we're in for a "broken clock" scenario.

Have no fear, Dick Morris is still an idiot.

• He counts unpledged RNC delegates in states delegate totals
• Some of the "Winner take all" states he counts for Romney are actually proportional (Oregon, Puerto Rico, etc)
• Other "WTA" states are actually caucus states or directly elected delegate states (WV, for example) where you can't really tell what's going on ahead of time anyway
• A lot of the states are really WTA by CD, like California, Wisconsin, Indiana, etc
• He's quite obviously just pulling numbers out of his ass for the "proportional representation" states he lists
• He also thinks Pennsylvania and North Carolina are WTA for some reason; PA elects delegates directly and NC is proportional
• He seems to think Romney will win in WV, NE, and ND

So, yeah, he really has no idea what he's talking about.

[Bacon King]

The 13th is a downstate seat. How Romney does in the cities downstate, will likely determine the vote in the 13th, as well as the 17th and 18th. Rick probably has 12 and 15 secured.

The 13th includes Springfield, some wealthier St. Louis exurbs, and the wealthy and white collar cities of Bloomington and Champaign. Decatur is probably the only populated area in the district that would vote for Santorum, but it'll certainly be outvoted. Even if Romney doesn't win anywhere else downstate, I think he'll carry the 13th anyway. I don't think Santorum's delegate problems here will be an issue.

[Bacon King]

A change in the delegate selection process this late in the game is very expressly against RNC rules.  While a vote at the convention itself (excluding Texas' delegates) could overturn that, there's no way that, if Texas were the deciding factor in stopping a Romney majority, that the vote would pass on the floor.

Actually, it would appear that WTA contests are against national RNC rules, so I think there's actually more chance that when it's all said and done that Willard will lose some from Arizona and Florida, rather than anything crazy happening with Texas.

WTA contests are only against the rules for contests going before a certain date (in March iirc)