[WhiskeyX]

The upcoming 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio has already been the subject of much speculation about how the Delegates will and will not be seated, be subjected to rule changes, denied recognition on the floor of the convention, and vote. A look back at the 2012 and 2008 conventions may or may not foreshadow the conflicts to come in the 2016 convention this summer. Will the char again refuse to recognize the calls for division, objection, and points of order?

[DannyTN]

Ron Paul is no Donald Trump.

Ron was more like Ted Cruz, having finagled delegate that he didn’t earn through voting.

[Catsrus]

Let’s not forget who is at the helm of the convention for delegates in Cleveland - Paul Manafort - enough said.

[grania]

We knew there were some shenanigans that worked against Ron Paul having delegates he earned. We knew it was declared "over" and McCain the prohibitive front-runner when Huckabee was gaining traction. We've learned that there were shenanigans that hurt Santorum.

I don't think we knew how bad it is, both political parties. It's been that way since GWB got steamrolled into the nomination with massive amounts of money, cutting off Forbes and Quayle. We went along with all the dismissive stuff the puppetmasters told us.

Thanks to Trump and Sanders tearing the system apart. We now know we've had NOTHING to do with choosing the President since Ronald Reagan.

It's an argument to use to convince folks to vote for Trump. Who knows what else we'll learn if we can clean the old garbage out of DC?

[lacrew]

I predict the rat convention may be a tad bit more ‘contested’ than the gop one.

[dangus]

Prior to this debacle, most state delegations were in no way bound to vote for the candidate who won the most votes in the first round. Following this, 48 out of 50 states had such a requirement.

Sen. Santorum had won several states, only to have his win stripped away from him by Ron Paul’s maneuvers to crash the state parties and have his loyalists elected in spite of having no intention to vote for the winner.

This is not to say that the states ever intended to have “faithless delegates” as they were called. Delegates were expected to vote for who they were assigned to vote for, based on elections, barring unusual circumstances, such a zombie candidacy being used to block a majority from forming.

And no, I don’t mean a “zombie candidate” as someone who persists after his election becomes unlikely, like people were worried Ted Cruz would be, but someone who was no longer a candidate, but didn’t want to free his delegates to help another candidate reach a majority.

So, really, the 2012 convention made huge strides towards democracy on one hand. On the other hand, it’s shameful that, yet again, unwritten codes of conduct had to be carved into stone, incapable of allowing responses to reasonable circumstances.