Can unexpected candidates emerge at the party conventions? Would they have the money and organization to do so?
The money you can raise really fast. Howard Dean showed us that. The difficulty is translating that money into an organization that could actually win the campaign. I think the process is very much stacked against any kind of unannounced candidate emerging. Let’s say you suddenly do better in Iowa than expected, or you enter the race late, and you’ve got to buy advertising time. There’s only a certain amount of advertising time for sale, and most of it in the early primary states has probably already been bought up. To get a mailing out takes a month. You have to hire staff. You could win a primary and not get any delegates if you don’t have someone committed to going to the convention in your name. All of these things have to happen very, very rapidly, and this work has already been done by the major campaigns. This is what usually stands in the way of a dark horse emerging. Every four years, a dark horse does emerge, and the eventual nominee overwhelms him with delegate counts. Event
Related Questions
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