Why does anyone think nominating Jeb Bush could be anything but disasterous?

[Mr. Morden]

Immediately the narrative is going to be about how the GOP is completely owned and ran by the Bush family and Jeb would just be the third Bush term his brother couldn't get and why they can't nominate and win with anyone not named Bush (a somewhat valid question I'll admit since the last two Republican presidents were Bushes) and basically every single thing the GOP has been trying urgently to avoid the last four years. Not to mention it'd be a liberal conspiracy theorist's dream come true and will allow them to be taken more seriously and about how the Bushes control the GOP so thoroughly they can get one of their own nominated without him even being on the ballot. There is really no response that can beat that reasoning, no "Romney and Santorum are lousy candidates" isn't enough (albeit true). A third Bush under such circumstance is a far bigger nightmare than those two despite all their baggage. I mean maybe it'd be different if Jeb ran and won the nomination fair and square (especially as this would be proof he could overcome the whole Bush name obstacle since Bush isn't too popular with the GOP base at the moment), but giving him the nomination North Korean-style really doesn't help with any misgivings they have with the name Bush they might be willing to get past.

Fun fact: the last winning GOP ticket without a Bush on it was Nixon/Agnew in 1972.

And the last one without either a Nixon or a Bush was Hoover/Curtis 1928.

[Mr. Morden]

Whoever has a plurality of delegates will be the GOP nominee. Having a majority will not be required. If a candidate does not secure a majority, the most likely case is the plurality winner being at the top of the ticket and the second place finisher being on the bottom of the ticket. The only exception would be a very close breaking of the delegates, like, 45-45-10, so whoever wants to cut a better deal with Ron Paul will be the nominee in that case. I would not bet on Santorum winning over Ron Paul.

^^^

Proving the statement about a broken clock correct...

Nah, he's right that one of the people running in the primaries would still end up being the nominee, but wrong that it would be because of a deal that involves the 1st place guy being president and 2nd place guy being VP.  I don't see such a deal happening easily between Romney and Santorum after a long, bitter primary fight.  What would more likely happen is that they'd try to make deals with individual delegates from the other side to get them to switch, rather than make a deal with each other.  Or they'd try to make a deal with Gingrich or Paul or their delegates.

[Mr. Morden]

If he needs to make a deal with paul, there is a chance that his delegates won't go along with any deal and that they might want to force it to a second vote to unlock the ninja delegates, that could screw Romney with several successive ballots bringing him fewer and fewer delegates.

"Unlock the ninja delegates" is a great slogan.

[Mr. Morden]

I'm not too sure a bitter fight completely makes that not possible, Obama may not have had Hillary as his running mate but they certainly cooperated and he gave her the top cabinet position, Bush and Reagan in 1980 got kind of nasty as well. Also Gingrich/Romney was the real nastiness ("When Mitt Romney Came To Town"), though Santorum/Romney is just getting started I suppose.

That's different though.  In those cases, Obama and Reagan respectively already had the nomination won.  At that point, you might as well be a good soldier.  But the scenario we're talking about is one in which the nomination is still contested.  Why the heck would either Romney or Santorum just give up, simply because the other candidate has a few more delegates and votes than they do, albeit not a majority?  They're not going to give up a real chance at the nomination just for the vice presidency, not after a months-long bitter primary fight, with all of their supporters egging them on to keep going.

The only way it would happen is if one of them becomes convinced that the other guy is sure to win it anyway, even without his cooperation.  In which case, time to make a deal.  Otherwise, it's a smarter bet that they'd try to woo Gingrich and Paul and their delegates, as well as try to convince delegates from each others' camps to jump ship.