Further, let’s say two other candidates get a plurality in five states and two candidates get a plurality in just four states, but the first two need the latter candidates’ support in order to make sure they can get the votes to force the rules to be rewritten so that they can be nominated. So the whole process could be really wide open – or not. It all depends.

How To Run A Floor Fight

Now let’s talk about the dynamics of a floor fight. Texas and Virginia have the two largest state conventions in the country. I recently called the national committeeman from Virginia, Morton Blackwell, who has been on the rules committee since 1988 and has attended every national rules committee meeting since 1972. We reminisced about some of the floor fights we had as the Republican Party became more conservative during the ’80s and ’90s. Morton caught me up on some of the nuances of the current rules.

I think it was sometime in the mid-’90s that I was given the gavel for a portion of the Texas state convention that covered rules and credentials. Understand something: guys or gals down the pecking order are never given the gavel at a major convention unless either the proceedings are very boring or the chair doesn’t want to be anywhere near the podium during a big floor fight. This was a situation of the latter kind. I can’t even remember what the disagreement was about, but for a large number in the room it had to do with a very deep-seated conviction. We were in the Fort Worth Convention Center, which held roughly 8000 people plus observers. My four girls were up in the upper decks watching their dad, proud that he was at the microphone – until 3000 or more people began to rather raucously and aggressively boo their father. They turned to their mother and demanded to know, “Why are these people booing Daddy?”

(Talk about an emotional day. That morning I had my first-ever standing ovation for a speech. That doesn’t happen much when I’m talking about investments and economics these days.)

Well, their daddy had made a ruling on a voice vote that did not meet with their satisfaction. The fact that I knew where the votes were, and that one side had clearly won, wasn’t apparent from the pandemonium and noise level on the floor. The next hour was spent in a rather interesting fashion, trying to piece things together through points of order and amendments and so forth. The convention parliamentarian – a rather thankless job – was kept quite busy.

I was never involved in and never ran a serious floor fight where we didn’t have reason to believe we had the votes when it came down to it. But the reality is I have been in some when the other side also thought they had the votes. Which is why you have the vote, to find out who really has counted their support correctly.

And when you’re trying to get your rule passed and the chair doesn’t want your rule passed, you had better have your ducks in a row. In a large convention in a venue the size of a football field – which the national convention will be – there will be microphones everywhere. Lot of people are going to want to get to a mike to let their opinion be known. Typically the rules limit the number and time of comments that can be made, so you want to make sure that the three people from your side who are allowed to speak are actually the three you want and not some random person walking up to the mike and losing the argument for you.

In the same way, if you hold the gavel and are in the chair, you want to make sure that you pick the right three people on your team, and if you can locate a wild player on the other team, you want to recognize his microphone. That means you have to have a floor team that is on the ball, typically with flags or hats or bandannas of distinctive colors, giving you signals as to what’s going on. With all the noise, even with cell phones (which we didn’t have in those days), you can’t hear anything. And at a national convention, if you’re up on the stage, you’re expected to keep everything moving. The TV cameras are on, and the nation is watching.

I could go on for a long time about all this – and have and will over a few glasses of wine when asked – but you get the idea. When I tell you a brokered convention could be chaos, I know whereof I speak. Party politics is a full-contact sport. You better have your pads and game face on if you walk into a brokered convention.