Posted on 04/03/2016 6:10:04 PM PDT by DrewsDad
The Donald Trump and Ted Cruz campaigns are working to prevent John Kasich from appearing on the ballot at the Republican National Convention in July, msnbc has learned, an aggressive strategy suggesting the GOP's leading candidates are girding for a contested convention to select the party's nominee.
On Sunday, Trump told a supporter that "Kasich shouldn't be allowed to continue and the RNC shouldn't allow him to continue."
Related: Trump Says RNC Shouldn't Allow Kasich to Keep Running
If no one clinches the nomination during the primaries, delegates choose from candidates on the convention ballot.
While Trump and Cruz are locked in a bitter battle, aides to both men tell msnbc it is in their mutual interest to keep Kasich off the ballot. The convention rules control who is on that ballot — and thus eligible to win the nomination.
"I expect the Rules Committee to require a level of support that would leave only two candidates on the ballot at the convention," a senior Cruz Campaign aide told msnbc.
That committee, which writes the rules governing an open convention, is made up of 112 Republican delegates from around the country. Operatives for Cruz and Trump say they will have major sway over what the committee does.
"The Cruz people and Trump people are fighting hard to make sure their hard-core delegates get on the committee," said Barry Bennett, a Trump adviser.
Bennett said a voting bloc favoring the two leading candidates will run the committee.
"We'll be successful getting at least a majority — or supermajority," he projected, counting Trump and Cruz delegates together.
Both campaigns are backing a rule that would require candidates to achieve a minimum amount of support to get on the ballot, which could block Kasich in Cleveland. That would effectively end his campaign.
Kasich cannot mathematically win the nomination through the primaries, so his only hope is to win on a convention ballot.
"The committee is not going to oppose" a rule that the two leading campaigns support, Bennett added.
Many RNC members now expect the ballot rule to be the first big fight of an open convention, and it will begin when the Rules Committee meets the week beforehand.
Another Republican operative, who has worked for Cruz, said the GOP primary will increasingly focus on convention maneuvering, which underscores a cloud now hanging over Kasich's candidacy.
Neither Cruz nor Trump will have the Magic Number. But Cruz will be very close to Trump, or very possibly a bit ahead of him by Convention time. There is no sane reason he should stand aside for the likes of Trump.
A Cruz win at the convention is a GOPe steal only in your fever ridden brain. Instead it will represent a return to sanity and the opportunity to elect a true constitutionalist - the first one in decades if not longer.
And it will represent a decision not to hand the election to Hillary Clinton on a slver platter by nominating literally the ONLY candidate who cannot beat her.
Nominating Cruz will mean that the stupid party finally got its brains back.
You are simply pushing GOPe propaganda ...why here of all places ? ..everyone can see what you’re doing ...
Well, they have that in common anyway. LOL!
Someone needs to break the news to Kasich. He’s still insisting today that he is going to win the nomination at the convention.
Unfortunately it won’t be final until the Rules Committee meets at the convention, but if they have the delegates in place, it should be a formality.
The PREVIOUS rule 40 was still fairly strict, requiring a plurality of delegates in 5 states. Even if they went back to that version of the rule, Kasich would be kept out. The Romney rule is quite strict and probably too strict. It pretty much depends on winning 8 winner-take-all states, so, if more states decided not to be winner-take-all, which I thought the RNC was actually trying to encourage, the rule would make eligibility even more out-of-reach. The plurality in 5 states was more reasonable. I believe that version of the rule would, at this point, make only Cruz and Trump eligible.
I don’t think Cruz has yet qualified under the Romney rule, but should easily get there with a couple more midwestern states.
Trump would go for it. He has sounded pretty open to the idea of Cruz as V.P. even in the last week or two.
Cruz has also not ruled it out. He’s very careful in his language, saying “he’s not interested in V.P.” but never saying he ruled it out.
Watching a documentary on CNN on Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, they sound a lot like Trump and Cruz...one guy is rough-around-the-edges, communicates at a lower class level, is more open to violent outbursts, the other is a guy who carefully plans things out, takes advantage of new technology in campaigning, and both are hated by the establishment and hate them back. Only difference is they never fought against each other. The Dems will have a field day making ads of clips of Trump and Cruz attacking each other if they ran on one ticket.
Kasich is funded by the GOPe and Soros so I expect him to stay in the race.
Rubio would have been pressured out earlier as well.
I’m not too impresed with you math there Mr. Quigley.
The fact of the matter is that both men will have roughly equal delegate counts by the time of the convention and Cruz has about a 50-50 chance of going into the convention with MORE pledged delegates than Trump, and WAAAAY more unpledged who will go to Cruz en mass on the second ballot.
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uh... No!
What I said.
PLus, Wisconsin is the last Cruz opportunity to pickup marginally big gain on Trump in delegates, then he gets crushed in the NE and Cali., guaranteed. Don’t believe for a minute GoPe is not looking at vote totals and house and senate seats they need to retain, no matter what you’re reading in the press about delegates. They know what it will mean if the clear winner by millions of real people(voters) is denied.
All though, I could be wrong they and Cruz supporters may be in favor of political suicide.
I am hoping that the two campaigns are realizing that the first fight is against the GOPe.
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