The notion of a brokered convention is popping up more frequently here and there. This thread over at Kos examines some (though not all) of the issues. I find the notion more than vaguely horrifying, in that I cannot conceive of a way in which the Democratic party could handle a brokered convention and come out of it with a strong candidate to send up against Bush. (I can conceive of ways that could be done generally, but not with this year's version of the Democratic party.)

If Dean has a plurality of the (non-super)delegates going in, but party hacks and grumpy primary losers try to cause trouble and keep him from the nomination, all hell will break lose. My only hope is that Dean will demonstrate some of that keen political acumen of his behind the scenes and work out a unifying agreement.