If they really wanted to rig them, they wouldn't have allowed them to be so spread out. Going by the rate of total delegates allotted, this Republican campaign season is something like twice as long as 2008's. Packing them in tightly would have put Romney over the top long ago. The only one who benefited from this year's schedule is Santorum -- and Obama.

I was trying to check All Of The Above (tm) but it only let me answer one.

@1: Not necessarily. Packing them tighter would have increased volatility. Romney benefited from the long schedule because any particular gaffe only affected one or two primaries. He *likely* would have won sooner in a compressed calendar, but the possibility of a single catastrophic mistake handing the whole thing to someone else would have been higher too.

Who cares? The GOP wants to WIN in 2012....do you really think the powers that be in the GOP were going to let one of the other freaks get the nomination? Romney is easily controlled by big money unlike the others who are ....... a little inbalanced in the head.

Ha ha ha, you are naive enough to think Obama gamed the system and was not handed the presidency on a silver platter by the banks? Does the stupidity have any limits on this site!?

@5: Apparently not, judging from your comment. The entire DNC establishment was behind Hilary, and she was seen as inevitable.

Or do you mean Obama "gamed the system" in the sense that he used fundraising and organization to overcome long odds? If so, every winner of every primary has "gamed the system," I guess.

The true art of rigging the system is to have it appear that it is not being rigged. To use Romney's failures to show there really is no "fix" isn't a valid argument. I think it actually shows how bitter a pill Romney really is to the RNC that the nomination hasn't gone as smoothly as expected.

What part of "GOP=Rigged Elections" don't people get?

If by "rigged" you mean "he had way more money behind him," then sure, they were rigged. Just like the 2004 elections were "rigged" for John Kerry (who, I remain convinced, was actually the same emotionless android as Mitt Romney, with minor alterations since made to the face to make the repurposing slightly less obvious).

Legally, I don't think that counts as rigged, but it by damn ought to. Haven't we proven enough times now that you can, in fact, buy elections? Isn't that the whole point of Citizens United? We are not rational beings, and advertising wins elections. Dump enough money into attack ads and you might as well have just stuffed the ballot box.

So, "rigged"? Yes and no. Not the way you mean, but still basically yes.

I could only hope you were right, that the GOP primaries were rigged. Because, if so, and this is the result: the unending internecine warfare, the press covering the gaff-a-minute collateral damage like white on rice, their leader sinking in public polling, then fuck yeah! Their organization, such as it is now, might prove a liability in the general election.

But, I suspect the main thing that's rigged is the money. Mitt's campaign is rich beyond Croesus and no matter how synthetic and uncharismatic he appears, he's steamrolled his opponents with cold, hard, impersonal cash.

And, come the Fall, even if he is a slightly repellent, uninspiring candidate, that cash is going to make him a formidable opponent.

@9 Sorry I didn't see your comment first. I got sidetracked mid-sentence and didn't get back to finishing mine for a bit. But, yeah, what you said!

Nice poll options!

Rigged shmigged. Any process that results in more months of Republicans accusing each other of abomination and bitchery is OK by me.

@10: that and the fact that he's actually a pretty good candidate. He's catching a lot of flack for his flack's "etch-a-sketch" comment, but that's mostly because said flack got caught telling the unvarnished truth. And it's the truth: the Right is going to mostly hold their noses and line up behind Romney. And for the vast bulk of independent voters and swing-able Democrats, Romney is pretty much exactly the sort of candidate they keep saying they want: committed to imperialism abroad but not likely to fly off the handle and invade Syria Just Because, squishy on social issues that upper middle class white people care about, and enough of a technocrat that he'll occasionally be caught evaluating a solution on its merits. In short a Rockefeller Republican of the old school.

I think the smart money is still on Obama, but it's gonna be a squeaker and the balance of congress, if it shifts at all, will be a little more toward the right.

@5: the nice thing about being a banker is knowing that your candidate will win no matter which candidate wins.

What @14 said.

Republicans have scrounged for every single excuse to not have Romney as their nominee, hence the endless parade of Non Romneys, and it sounds like they're still complaining! But the biggest reason Michelle Bachmann won't be the nominee, or Herman Caine, or Gingrich, or Santorum, or Ron Paul, is that all of them suck as contenders. All of them were lousy on the stump or in front of the cameras, or they shot themselves in the foot, sometimes repeatedly, so badly so that Republican voters dropped them and reluctantly returned to Romney. Time after time. They kept hoping that a competent alternative would suddenly drop from the sky, to no avail. So Republicans are finally settling for Romney. Because the primary was rigged? Because of Big Money? Mostly because they don't have a better alternative.

Dear Republican party faithful: Your slate just plain sucks this year. Deal with it.