The 2012 Version of Candidate Warren Harding

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Will Republicans meet at their convention without a confirmed nominee with the needed 1,144 delegates needed? A Gingrich state campaign director thinks so. A brokered convention is all for the good for Ron Paul. It means that Dr. Paul will have a stronger position than Warren Harding did in the 1920’s brokered convention. Read on for NyPo’s reports:

With Newt Gingrich unlikely to pick up many delegates in the Wisconsin primary on Tuesday, his state campaign director, Robert Lorge, said his mission after that vote will be to help the former House speaker persuade what he calls "soft delegates" to support him.

Those "soft delegates" amount to Wisconsin’s three Republican National Committee delegates, plus the three delegates from each of the eight congressional districts who could become unbound at the convention.

"Newt is going to be focusing on soft delegates, unbound delegates, and of course all of the delegates are unbound after the second ballot," Lorge told FOX News.

Gingrich has said he will remain in the race until Mitt Romney wins the 1,144 delegates that would secure him the Republican nomination. Lorge believes Romney will not reach that threshold, leading to a contested Republican National Convention this August.

"This election is going to be very much like 1920’s Warren Harding Republican Convention," he said. "General Leonard Wood went in there with 30 percent of the delegates and thought he had it made. Warren Harding went in with six percent of the delegates. After ten ballots, Harding had 70 percent.

And get a load of this from Wikipedia:

[Harding’s] conservativism, affable manner, and "make no enemies" campaign strategy made Harding the compromise choice at the 1920 Republican National Convention. During his presidential campaign, in the aftermath of World War I, he promised a return of the nation to "normalcy". This "America first" campaign encouraged industrialization and a strong economy independent of foreign influence. Harding departed from the progressive movement that had dominated Congress since President Theodore Roosevelt.

Who does that remind you of?

Harding went on to defeat Democrat James M. Cox in the largest presidential popular vote landslide in American history (60.36% to 34.19%) since popular votes were recorded in 1824.

Reprinted with permission from Economic Policy Journal.

2012 Economic Policy Journal