Has a nominee ever had to pull out of a race before the Convention?

[daveon]

Huff Post have this up today.  lr:dr 'sources' inside Bain are saying that had Romney realised the tax issue would be this big and hard to kill then he probably wouldn't have run, because he really doesn't want to release the data.

I've been trying to work out his strategy on this and I'm really struggling.  George Will really nailed it: in one form or another this man has been running for President since 2002, and definitely since 2008 - why in the hell he didn't simplify his affairs is beyond me.

He's obviously done an analysis and decided that trying to tough it out is better than putting this stuff in the public domain.  Given the way these things work, I think he'll start to find he can't keep it hidden.

The most likely options for me are:
1) In 2009 with loses from 2008 he just didn't pay much in tax.  I doubt it was zero, but it's low enough to cause problems
2) He took advantage of a 2009 amnesty for tax avoidance and had been hiding money in Switzerland
3) He's just doesn't believe this stuff is anybody's business

Item 1: This is bad, but something that probably can be managed - I don't think it kills his chances, but it gives Obama a lot of help

Item 2: Dead. Stick a fork in him, he's done, that's it.  He's out of the race - I find this REALLY unlikely - but there is no way he could even go forward if it turned out that he'd actually been avoiding tax and had had to take advantage of an amnesty to avoid legal stuff

Item 3: Man up dude.  You're running for President it's a VERY public job

So...  Given (2) or (3) has there ever been a situation where a candidate has dropped out before the Convention?  What are the parliamentary rules in that event?

Comments

[jsburbidge.livejournal.com]

Brokered convention; smoke-filled rooms.

In other words, the way it used to be done before primaries.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

Would it have to be somebody who was part of the primary process or could it be anybody?

That said, none of the primary candidates looked remotely electable... could they draft a Jed Bush or a Tim Pawlenty?

[bemused-leftist.livejournal.com]

Could be anybody.

Candidates pull out all the time, more or less officially. The candidate can either release his delegates, give his delegates to someone else, or keep them bound to vote for him on the first ballot.

If no one wins a majority on the first ballot, then all committments are off, and any delegate can all vote for anyone they want to, on as many ballots as it takes for someone to get a majority.

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

In the past they've drafted people who were not part of the primary process at all. In fact, primaries used to be a joke just to get people to feel like they had a choice in who was running for president. It was only in the 70s that they actually started nominating the guy who got the most delegates in the primaries.

What's going on here is that Romney doesn't really want or expect to be president. The Republicans have realized that sometime early next year when Europe finally collapses it's going to fuck the US economy and they don't want to have the presidency when it happens,

So, they've put Romney up and told him to throw the race and promised him something nice for being willing to be the sacrificial lamb. (Either a great no show highly paying corporate job next year or some sort of cool ass government job in 2016 when they figure they will win.)

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

Have you noticed that those smoke filled rooms got us much better candidates then the system we currently use?

#4

[bovil.livejournal.com]

Two words: "Bain Income"

[daveon.livejournal.com]

That's already public domain, unless he got more than is covered in the public Bane filings... I am leaning towards something being dodgy about his Swiss holdings now it's emerged that he left our his FUBR stuff from the papers he has issued.