Fox News Tries To Tamp Down Brokered Boom

FoxNews.com's Chris Stirewalt notes that competing Republican factions are pining for a brokered convention, and seeks to warn them from heading down that path:

It is no doubt appealing for unhappy Republicans and the political press to fantasize about making history with either a late-arriving shoo-in or the first Republican convention to produce a surprise nominee since 1940.

But here, the problem is something like Newt’s transgressions: everybody sees something different. While Bill Kristol may be imagining Paul Ryan or Mitch Daniels, someone else is imagining Sarah Palin appearing in South Carolina...

...a new candidate could still emerge, but he or she would not be able to seriously vie for delegates until late March and would still miss out on some big prizes, like Ohio.

That would set the stage for a brokered convention in which the various tribes of the Republican Party would battle for primacy. The libertarians, the evangelicals, the defense hawks and the moderates would do battle with someone, probably Mitt Romney, surviving to grasp the nomination with bloodied fingers.