Letter from a Miami Jail: Conrad Black Goes Broke From Behind Bars

Conservative media mogul Conrad Black, convicted of fraud and obstruction of justice and currently in Miami Federal prison, finds the time to talk up the prospects of a brokered convention in the National Review:

Newt is not the nominee; he’s the negation of Mitt, and the nomination will be deferred to the timely decision of the none-of-the-above majority.

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Either Newt, too weighed down by darts, buckshot, and self-detonated combustion, will start to fade before the caucuses and primaries are too advanced, and one more declared non-Mitt, possibly Jon Huntsman, will arise; or the absence of a contender with a commanding lead will prevail until it is so close to the convention, or even at the convention, that there will be a draft of one of the non-runners, probably Jeb Bush. There will not be endless balloting until the deadlock is broken by selection of a dark horse, as with Warren Harding in 1920, or John W. Davis by the Democrats in 1924. But the process that has produced a nominee easily for both parties at every convention since 1952 now looks likely not to work this year; there is no bandwagon, and there could be the first real draft since the Democrats chose Adlai Stevenson in 1952, and, on the Republican side, since Wendell Willkie in 1940.

The genius of the American system produces a serious leader when the country has to have one, and substitutes an improvised selection process when the normal procedures don’t work.