Posted on 01/14/2016 5:14:15 AM PST by Kaslin
Months ago we started hearing it from longtime Republican pundits and leaders. It was mentioned casually by most, almost as if an afterthought. But in reality they knew then and know now that a combination of a crowded field of candidates and quirky GOP rules could all but guarantee that the will of the voters could have little to do with deciding the GOP presidential nomination.
That would return Republicans back to the days of the old "Taft" style of intraparty Republican politics of the 1950s, minus the late Sen. Robert Taft's more conservative philosophy. In 1952 it took a wave of extraordinary demonstrations and rallies for the far more popular Dwight Eisenhower to overcome the rules of the '52 convention, which were all designed to keep Ike's supporters away from the convention hall, the delegate's floor and the speaker's rostrum.
It doesn't take a brain surgeon to comprehend that the old boy GOP club isn't happy with the way things are panning out as we head into the Iowa caucus and the many other caucuses and primaries that will swiftly follow it. There is not a single major early state where the establishment's first choice, former Gov. Jeb Bush, is running strong. The two most competitive "mainstream" alternatives, Marco Rubio and Chris Christie, are hardly "old guard" Republicans, but might be acceptable to the establishment in a pinch.
The unvarnished truth is that establishment Republicans are terrified of Donald Trump, who is beholden to none of them, and only slightly less troubled by Ted Cruz, who they have viewed with openly expressed disdain since he came to the U.S. Senate.
So their hope is that the crazy rules of this year's Republican selection process will result in no one candidate having the requisite number of delegates in hand to claim victory outright before the convention is held in Cleveland, and that even if a candidate has accomplished that task, they might not meet the secret extra high bar set by the 2012 convention.
The drumbeat of a brokered convention from establishment pundits has been growing louder. "Exhibit A" would be a piece penned by Karl Rove late last year in which he basically spells out the path to bargained and bartered nomination. He notes that 28 jurisdictions that hold caucuses or primaries before March 15 will award their delegates proportionally. That means that no one candidate gets to scoop up a load of delegates, regardless if they "win" one of those contests or not. South Carolina will be a winner-take-all, pre-March-15 contest, but it is the one exception.
And even after states are allowed to hold winner-take-all primaries or caucuses, not all will do so. By Rove's math, that means 60 percent of the delegates will be awarded proportionately. That, combined with the some 200-plus likely "super delegates," made up of GOP state chairs and committee members, adds to the potential of no one candidate winning the nomination on the first round of voting.
What Rove didn't mention is an even crazier booby trap set by the 2012 Republican convention leadership. Rule 40(b), adopted at the 2012 GOP convention in Tampa, basically states that no candidate's name may be placed in nomination without support from the majority of delegates in eight different states. That means 50 percent plus one. Trump or Cruz could be leading in delegates but fail to meet the quirky rule designed primarily to punish 2012 candidate Ron Paul.
Here's a message for the party establishment. If the combination of silly convention rules and crazy delegate apportionment provisions results in candidates who have obvious and strong support somehow failing to meet requirements to be nominated, chaos will erupt. And Trump, regardless of prior pledges, would surely bolt for a third-party effort that would be justified. Republicans would be doomed in November.
Yes, there are all manner of "experts" telling us that Rule 40(b) will be changed prior to the actual convention vote. But does anyone believe if Ted Cruz or Donald Trump is on the precipice of winning the nomination but lacks the requisite numbers, rules will be changed to accommodate them? Highly placed sources confirm that party leaders are sorting through ways thwart an "undesirable" outcome.
Don't be shocked if the GOP establishment doesn't try to reprise the days of Robert Taft at its convention.
I think you’re right to be worried. I just don’t see how they can pull this level of dirty trick with this level of visibility. If Trump or Cruz has the delegates acting like you describe (Cochran/McDaniel) would destroy the party entirely. They will try every trick in the book to prevent Trump or Cruz from getting the delegates. Bank on that. but in the end, if Trump or Cruz has the delegates, they’ll get the nomination.
The choice of VP could be crucial here. If a GOPe member is chosen as VP candidate, these same people could look for reasons to impeach Trump or Cruz, work with the democrats to do it and install their GOPe VP as the President. You know, for the good of the country.
Trump is a populist, not a conservative but... he is not a liberal pervert, a proponent of sanctuary cities, or a stalwart of socialized medicine.
All of which very accurately describe Mitt Romney. Everyone who voted for him was okay with Homosexual marriage, forcing the Boy Scouts to accept homosexual men, teaching graphic homosexual acts in schools, and bringing about socialized medecine. I am not for letting anyone who can slip across the border stay here, especially not with all the Muslim bombings we have seen since the early 90s. Everyone of those things are part of Mitt Romney’s record as Massachusetts Governor.
You have to be okay with all of those things not to consider Trump three steps to the right of Mitt.
As I am not in favor of these things I acknowledge that Trump is better that what the Republican Party was selling last election.
Cruz is my guy since Walker went amnestybot.
Trump is the only other candidate on the Republican field I can hold my nose and vote for. Is he conservative no...but he is if you compare him to Yeb! or Christie or Rubio.
You mean the current “party” that colluded with the Democrats during the Mississippi State primary to keep their man in office?
trump might not be as successful bringing jobs back as he thinks. And then we will have the worst of all possible worlds: little improvement on jobs AND unconstitutional government AND crony capitalist deals.
Yes, the party needs serious change. trump is not the change it needs.
Cruz or lose. America.
Nope, trump is worse than Romney. Romney had some sense of the world not existing for his own aggrandizement. He was more than vaguely aware of the Constitution.
Yep, that broken-down, tattered beast that has come up lame time and sgain. trump would be the bullet in the head to the old mare.
Whether it’s a good thing or not, I would mourn her passing. The party whose foundation was in liberty and equal rights should have come to a better end.
Since I an uncompromising on the matter of adults having sexual access to children, and since I bothered to follow the educational curriculum Romney pushed and I understand what homosexual men will do with young scouts, you and I will disagree.
Publicly, and on every thread Trump is denigrated as being worse than Romney.
trump has been for explicit equal rights for homosexuals, has said he’s “evolving” on the question of homosexual marriage, supported “hate crimes” legislation for crimes against homosexuals, and said that the Court’s ruling on homosexual marriage is the “law of the land,” and his to be obeyed by government officials at all levels.
Not a tinker’s damn worth of difference between the two on this issue.
And on the issue I consider paramount, governing as a president properly within the bounds of the Constitution, trump gets an F. Maybe a G. He’s that bad.
Please!!
The GOP has already died. The “doom” is over and done.
The GOP is nothing but liberals in another club working with liberals in the other club to “get things done” like “solving problems” THEY created while previously “getting things done”.
Sorry Nikki Haley, I guess I’m sounding off with a “loud voice” you stupid bitch.
>> Yes, the party needs serious change. trump is not the change it needs.
I’m supporting Cruz too but I’ll vote for Trump if he’s the nominee.
Cruz or lose. America.
Eight states is pretty steep. But I don't see Cruz or Trump having that problem. Kasic, Huckabee, Bush -- they could have trouble. But if you have a situation where nobody has enough delegates from enough states, there will be deals made by the most successful candidates to get around that situation.
It was Calif. Sen. Richard Nixon who brought Gov. Earl Warren into it and brokered a deal by which the Eisenhower people got the California delegates, Nixon got the VP slot, and Warren got the chief justiceship of the Supreme Court. That was the deal.
(Imagine that -- with "Whizzer" White and Harry Blackmun on the Court, Ike hands the CJ slot to a governor in a political deal. Stink enough for you yet? And then Warren turned out to be a disaster.)
Nixon skunked the conservatives again in 1960 by doing a deal with Nelson Rockefeller in a hotel room on 7th Avenue in New York, where the convention was held that year. Nixon and Rocky cooked up slippery backroom politics while Barry Goldwater and the conservatives stood outside in the rain, protesting and holding signs. It was called "The Compact of Seventh Avenue", and it stank to high heaven.
That was the setup for Barry's steamroll job in 1964 -- the conservative Main Streeters had really, really had it with Rocky and Tricky Dick and the Dewey people and backroom deals.
And the East Coast millionaires and big chiefs shot Main Street in the back and handed the White House to LBJ.
They'd rather have had LBJ than lose control of the GOP. Well, they got what they wanted, and we're still counting our cost from all the damage LBJ did.
Earl Warren was so obnoxious to Main Street even Ike had to say years later he made a ‘mistake’ with Warren as Chief Justice.
Ike tried to get rid of Tricky Dick, too -- the infamous 1956 "Checkers" speech was Nixon's successful riposte to Ike's trying to limp-leg him off the ticket using the excuse of some mini-scandal about a vicuna coat and some Ducommun insurance stock. When there was a real scandal involving White House chief of staff Sherman Adams, Ike sent guess who, Tricky Dick down to Adams's office to fire him. Ike did stuff like that a lot, both in the Army and in the White House. It was his "management style".
Say what? Romney and his people sabotaged the 2008 election, and in 2012, they revised the whole party rules and apparatus for the future to allow only GOP-e crony communists to win the nomination.
Perhaps inadvertently, the Romney communist machine set up the demise of the whole GOP. Either the voters take back the party from the GOP-e in 2016, or there will be a whole new party. The commie establishment is done.
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