Paul Happy With Second in Nevada

I don't think either party will be able to ignore 10% of their base and expect to win in November. The Rs appear more fragmented that the Ds at this stage --I would not want to be in charge of their November strategy.

I do not understand exactly how this works in the Republican party, but people are saying that this will end up being a brokered convention, the first in a half century. At that point the other candidates will be trading things for each other's delegates.

Another article on how this would actually work: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/12/politically_uncorrected_conven.html

In their place, party primaries and caucuses have become the de facto nomination mechanism; successful nominees have arrived at the convention with the delegate votes needed or comfortably close to that needed for a first ballot nomination.

But what if that doesn't happen in 2008? What if no candidate wins a majority of the delegates before the party conventions convene in late August and early September?

The answer is both simple and profound. If no candidate arrives with a majority of delegates, the convention itself must determine the winner. But who exactly will do this? And how?

In the past, contested conventions have been "brokered," which is an elegant way of describing the hard-nosed horse trading carried on by leading party bosses seeking a nominee. The bosses tried to settle on a nominee before the convention. When this failed, they used multiple ballots to test respective candidate strength.