Howard the Donkey Fears a Brokered Convention

Howard Dean is not happy with the results of the current Democrat nominating process (under DNC rules) due to the fears of a brokered convention. The rules were pretty much created to benefit Hillary Clinton and never anticipated that she would have a strong competitor able to deny her the February 5th coronation the rules had intended. Howard's going to have to do something about it:

Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean on Wednesday voiced concern over the prospect of a brokered convention at the end of the party's White House nominating contests.

"The idea that we can afford to have a big fight at the convention and then win the race in the next eight weeks, I think, is not a good scenario," Dean said according to excerpts of an interview with NY1 television.

In state nominating contests so far, no clear winner has emerged among Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the party's nomination ahead of November's presidential vote to replace George W. Bush in the White House.

"I think we will have a nominee sometime in the middle of March or April. But if we don't, then we're going to have to get the candidates together and make some kind of an arrangement," said Dean, who failed in his bid for the party's nomination in 2004.

"Because I don't think we can afford to have a brokered convention -- that would not be good news for either party."

Actually, it would be great for the GOP and might even give them a glimmer of hope that they could win with McCain, a glimmer which would be quickly dashed by the first post-convention polls. I'd love to see a good old floor battle in Denver, and in reality, the Dems would benefit because people might actually tune in and watch. Conventions have become a boring collection of speeches and most networks won't even give them more than a tiny amount of the coverage they used to receive. A floor fight would bring in the viewers, though it could also split the party faithful into warring factions.

Works for me.