Annals of derp: What do hedgehogs dream of?

Lactose-intolerant hedgehogs need pizza too! Via Arla Foods.

Nate Silver says a contested Republican convention is "not hard to imagine" and a "real possibility", and so David Brooks, never too strong in the mathematics department, reads that as meaning it's a done deal:

now it’s likely no candidate will get that majority on the first ballot.

So the campaign has become a delegate-centric process. Suddenly the delegates have all the power and the candidates have to woo them for their support.

Time to start planning! Gary Cooper, Jimmy Stewart, and I guess Mickey Rooney ("Let's put on a show!")  and all the other delegates should get together and form themselves into a Lincoln Caucus:

The Lincoln Caucus would not be an explicitly anti-Trump caucus or an anti-Cruz caucus. It would just be a caucus made up of delegates who are not happy with the choices currently before them.

I love that. It wouldn't be explicitly anti-Trump or anti-Cruz, it would merely be explicitly anti-Trump and anti-Cruz.

The evidence suggests that there will be a lot of these delegates. Only 10 percent of the delegates are named by the presidential campaigns.

Sadly, no.

According to the very source you just linked, Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight, down below the chart and the bullet points, the evidence suggests that the delegates not named by campaigns or directly elected in the primary (another 16% who seem to have escaped Brooks's attention) will tend to support Cruz:

We know that Cruz is likely to do well among delegates chosen through state and local conventions because we’ve seen that demonstrated quite a few times already. This is most obvious in the three states — Colorado, Wyoming and North Dakota — where there was no presidential preference vote....

Cruz has also gotten good results at state and local conventions in states that do hold a presidential preference vote. In fact, considering that relatively few states have completed their convention process, it’s remarkable how many examples you can find of Cruz cleaning Trump’s clock: for example, in Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina and South Dakota. 

Or if that's too much reading, you could check out Nate's headline:

Ted Cruz, Not Paul Ryan, Would Probably Win A Contested Convention

The ‘establishment’ might not like Cruz, but the delegates likely will.

So not great at math, not great at reading, what is Brooks good at? Dreaming, I think: Why should he waste his time studying this awful earthly Republican party, when there's the beautiful, grave and sober, genteel Republican party in his head, or just outside the mouth of the Platonic cave, or in the mind of God. That's where the delegates of the Lincoln Caucus debate the planks of their 2016 platform, with a generous give-and-take and a cautious Burkean modesty:

Members of the caucus would remind the country that there still are Republicans who believe in prudent globalism, reform conservative ideas to lift up the working class. There are still Republicans who believe in certain standards of polite behavior in public and pragmatic compromise.

Yes, Davy.

He's such a hedgehog, knowing his One Big Thing. Prudent globalism, tax incentives to encourage propriety on the part of those who are too poor to pay taxes, and standards of polite behavior. That's certainly going to grab this year's electorate. Hey-hey! Ho-ho! Prudent globalism's the way to go!



Stu's Song, by Ed Helms, apparently composed for The Hangover (2009). In other Brooksological news of the day, Driftglass tries rewriting the column as a very famous Monty Python sketch. It works.