Delegate Challenge

In another sign that you can't trust any of the delegate counts yet, the news has surfaced that Newt intends to challenge Florida's winner-take-all policy.

It seems that the RNC has a rule that states that no state may have a winner-take-all policy until after April 1. Florida got around this because they were already under sanction for jumping out of their place in line to the end of January. This sanction took half of their 99 delegates and reduced it to 50 delegates. It is unlikely that the RNC will opt to impose two rounds of penalties on Florida (which is what forcing proportionality would do since it would upend what the state voted on) but this is still a good idea for Newt.

Based on what happened in the Democrat 2008 primary (and especially considering that the Republican convention is in Tampa this year) it is highly unlikely that the RNC will actually refuse to seat the removed 49 delegates from Florida. This has the net effect of the RNC punishment to be zero. So, knowing that Florida will probably get it's full 99 delegates anyway, why not challenge for proportionality. The RNC might see this as an easy opt-out situation. They agree to give Florida their full delegate roster in exchange for the proportionality agreement. Florida won't care because the full seating of their delegates is what they really want. Who they actually vote for is irrelevant.

The RNC will probably not act to vote on this until May or June, by which time, all of this might be irrelevant. If the rules are changed to the above scenario, Mr. Romney would actually lose 4 delegates to give him 46. Newt would then get 32 delegates, while Mr. Santorum gets 13 and Uncle Ron gets 7. That would leave one additional delegate to be assigned and I would guess that would go to Mr. Romney as winner of the primary.

All this would change the delegate totals somewhat, although things are still so much in flux that it's hard to see it that much. Mr. Romney's current hard total of 59 would be reduced to 56 while Newt's hard total would increase to 55. Uncle Ron would bump up to 10 while Mr. Santorum would actually get on the board at 13. All of these candidates will be getting more delegates from Iowa later but since nothing will be set until mid-June, speculating about totals doesn't help much.

More of interest will be gained with the contest in Nevada on Saturday and in Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri on Tuesday.