Mitt Romney probably will get to the Republican National Convention without a majority of delegates, former New Hampshire state Sen. Bob Clegg says.
Speaking on Rasmussen Reports, Clegg said he would be “surprised” if the former Massachusetts governor has the party’s presidential nomination wrapped up by Aug. 27, the first day of the convention in Tampa, Fla.
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“We’re not going to see anybody have the majority of the delegates that they need and they will go to the floor and there is going to be a battle,” Clegg said in a roundtable hosted by the polling company’s head, Scott Rasmussen.
“The Republicans have not put up somebody that all of the Republicans can accept,” said Clegg, who gave up his Senate seat in 2008 to run for Congress and who worked closely with Mike Huckabee’s team in 2008.
Conservative commentator Bill Kristol agreed that the 2012 race for the GOP nomination could go into “uncharted waters,” because of changes to campaign finance laws and to the way states allocate delegates.
“We have proportional allocation through January, February, and March and many of the states after April 1. We have super PACs, so the old reason people used to get out, they ran out of money, may not obtain anymore, because you don’t have to raise money in $2,400 chunks, people can put in millions of dollars on your behalf. And we have a schedule that is much more drawn out.”
Kristol said he believes that both Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum are in the race for the long haul. “Conservatives are not going to give up and say Mitt Romney got 25 percent of the vote in Iowa, he got 35 percent of the vote in New Hampshire, maybe 30 percent in South Carolina, I guess we have just got to end the race now.
“That’s just not going to happen, people in the 47 other states want to have their say.”
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