Will GOP Convention Decide the Nominee?

By Rhodes Cook

Few prospects are more intriguing to those in the political world than that of a multiballot convention.

There has not been one since the 1950s, and history argues that Republicans are unlikely to offer one in 1996. But every passing week that the GOP race remains muddled increases the chances that such an affair will emerge 'Brigadoon'-like this August in San Diego.

Certainly, none of the Republican candidates has gained the upper hand as the race moves into the avalanche of March primaries.

Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole boasts more organizational and big-name support than any of his rivals, yet by the end of February had failed to win any state outside his home base in the farm states. After telling an audience of Republicans last year that he was willing to be another Ronald Reagan if they wanted, Dole these days would probably be willing to settle for being another Walter F. Mondale - the badly scarred Democratic nominee in 1984, who is the patron saint of embattled front- runners.

Meanwhile, former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander seems in some ways to be reprising the role of Mondale's 1984 nemesis, Gary Hart (then a senator from Colorado). Like Hart, Alexander spent much of his time and resources on making a breakthrough in Iowa and New Hampshire. But once that was accomplished, Hart was unprepared for the flood of primaries and caucuses that followed. There are signs that Alexander may be in a similar position.

As for conservative commentator Patrick J. Buchanan, he seems almost to be a Republican version of George McGovern. Like McGovern in 1972, Buchanan has an energetic cadre of supporters that enables him to dominate low-turnout caucuses and to prevail in some primaries against a divided field of rivals.

But McGovern had a distinct advantage in pursuing the Democratic nomination that Buchanan does not have. In 1972, there were more caucuses than primaries, enabling McGovern's liberal, anti-war candidacy to dominate the delegate-selection process in unlikely places such as Virginia and Utah. This year, the situation is reversed. Republicans have roughly 40 primaries, and they draw a much larger slice of the GOP electorate than caucuses do.

Adding to the Republican volatility is publishing magnate Malcolm S. "Steve" Forbes Jr., a wild card if there ever was one. He has spent money in amounts that could soon make Ross Perot look penurious. But Forbes' up-and-down candidacy is still looking for a reliable base of support. He drew roughly one- third of the vote in winning primaries in Delaware and Arizona, but took barely 10 percent in the closely watched contests before that in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Ahead, the situation is even more unpredictable, with a March gantlet of more than two dozen primaries that no field of candidates has ever had to face.

Yet by the standard of recent presidential nominating campaigns, what is happening now is not all that extraordinary. The race is often most unsettled in the period between the Iowa caucuses in mid-February and the large Midwestern primaries in mid-March.

It is a time when front-runners are routinely jolted, challengers emerge from the pack, and chaos reigns. But while the turbulence is often severe, it is often over quickly. The usual scenario is that one candidate suddenly starts to pull away from the pack, and order is quickly restored.

That is what happened on the Democratic side in 1992. Bill Clinton did not win anywhere in February. But an early March victory in Georgia led to a sweep of the other Southern primaries in the week that followed. Soon, Clinton was gathering all the chips on his side of the table. A loser of a half-dozen primaries in the opening weeks of the 1992 primary season, Clinton won 24 of the next 25 primaries from mid-March on.

It was a similar situation for George Bush on the GOP side in 1988. Bush stumbled out of the gate with a loss in the Iowa caucuses, followed with a win in New Hampshire, then suffered a loss a week later in South Dakota. But once the race hit the South in early March, Bush never lost another primary.

Bush was helped along by Republican rules that push for quick closure to the nominating contest. In a large number of states, GOP delegates are awarded on some form of winner-take- all basis, so that if one of the candidates can put together a string of primary victories, even with just 30 to 35 percent of the vote, he could quickly move out to a long lead in the delegate count.

Still, the fascination of presidential nominating contests is that each one is different. Not only does the field change, but so does the calendar of events. And politics throughout the 1990s has distinctly taken on the scent of the unusual.

As a consequence, this may be the year that old patterns do not apply. And each week that the GOP presidential race continues to be jumbled, the more unusual its final outcome is likely to be.

Copyright 1996, Congressional Quarterly Inc. All rights reserved.

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