Posted on 04/13/2016 12:18:12 PM PDT by pogo101
You could see it scattered across multiple headlines by Sunday night. Trump LOSES weekend delegate fight in five states! To read these ledes and the twitter feeds of the #NeverTrump crowd you’d have thought there were nearly a half dozen elections you somehow slept through and Trump had been trounced in all of them. The reality, of course, is that there weren’t any public elections and the only time Trump was actually beaten anywhere in recent memory was in Wisconsin. But what Trump was losing at was the race to collect delegates who are loyal to him and will willingly carry his banner into the convention in Cleveland.
The argument which has sprouted from this delegate curation process has been dismaying to observe, though not because of the first argument put forth by all of Trump’s attackers. The typical response to complaints from Trump supporters who claim that the nomination is being “stolen” is to say that these are the rules, and if Trump wanted to play the game he should have known them. Let’s set a baseline here by saying that I agree with that simple statement of fact. Ted Cruz is not “cheating” in any way shape or form. He’s playing to win and doing so within the constructs of system as it exists today.
But having said that, I have a favor to ask of all my friends currently doing (potentially premature) end zone dances on the grave of Trump’s nomination prospects. Even as we agree that the rules are what they are, can we at least set aside the specifics of this election cycle and your distaste for the Manhattan businessman and be honest enough to also agree that many of those rules suck? This earnest conversation only works with the caveat that we clearly can’t (and probably shouldn’t) do anything about it this year and agreeing with me won’t endanger your chances of “stopping Trump.” We’re talking about the future here. These rules, which only apply to a certain number of states, aren’t just flawed: they’re embarrassing.
Remember back when conservative writers – many of whom rest on high perches in the #NeverTrump movement today – complained bitterly about how establishment party insiders were railroading their own base and forcing moderate candidates on us? Ah, good times, my friends. Good times. We were assured that our losses in 2008 and 2012 could largely be explained by the fact that the GOP elite around the nation were ignoring their own voters and rejecting conservative candidates in favor of “more electable” centrists. The nation, we were told, hungered for a real conservative, but The Man was holding the door shut. In 2016, however, the worm has turned cartwheels and the narrative has changed dramatically.
The events in Colorado have probably drawn the most attention since the voters never had full primary election where they could directly weigh in. Attempts to describe this as “grassroots” activism are laughable at best, even when it’s being labeled as Scenes of a Political Revolution. Pleased observers refer to these machinations as evidence that Trump simply has a weak ground game. And it’s being repeated in various forms in a number of states. In Pennsylvania Trump maintains a huge lead, but it’s already been made clear that only 17 of the state’s trove of more than 70 delegates are bound to the will of the voters. The rest can vote for whom they will, and state party operatives have made it clear that Trump is not their choice. In other states, delegates are being put in place who will, under the rules, be forced to reluctantly vote for Trump on the first ballot but will be itching to turn their backs on him as soon as possible.
The question I have for everyone in the party on both sides of the Trump divide is… why are we defending these rules? If, as I requested above, we consider this question in some alternative, Trump-free universe, would any of you describe this as a way for the party to “listen to their voters and stop forcing candidates we don’t want down our throats?” I can answer that one for you. We would not. Think of this in terms of an entrepreneur attracting consumer support for a new product launch. Which argument do you think is going to wind up being more salable in the mass market… that you had the support of the largest number of engaged investors or that you found a clever way to game the tax laws?
Some of the arguments which conservatives are resorting to in defense of these state rules should truly remind us of the corner we’re being painted into. I was discussing this question with my friend Jim Geraghty on Twitter earlier this week and other #NeverTrump advocates were jumping in on the conversation. Addressing the question of not selecting delegates based on the result of the vote, here’s one of the common themes which emerged.
@JazzShaw Like the electoral college? Or our members of Congress? We don't live in a direct democracy! @jimgeraghty
— MikeSal (@Mike_Sal) April 11, 2016
@JazzShaw Primaries are a relatively new part of our process. The republic survived for almost 2 centuries without them. @jimgeraghty
— MikeSal (@Mike_Sal) April 11, 2016
Really? This is how far we have to sink in order to defend the system? First of all, as I reminded that Twitter follower, there is no parallel between the electoral college and the delegate allocation system. Faithless electors are not allowed. (Though it remains unclear how much control you really have over them, but that’s a debate for another day.) As to the idea that primaries are “relatively new” and we did without them for nearly 200 years… sure. That’s true. We also did without many other things for much of our history, like electricity, indoor plumbing and a vaccine for smallpox. That still doesn’t make most of us pine for “the good old days.”
So how can we fix it? To repeat the key point here which seems to be gumming up the works, it can’t be changed this year. As a result, if the existing rules wind up allowing Ted Cruz to come out of Cleveland as the nominee, many of us will be happy with the result even if we lose so many voters in November that Hillary effectively runs unopposed. But the system can be changed for the next presidential cycle which, for all we know, may be just as tight of a race as this one. The flaws in the current system have been there for ages, but they weren’t obvious as long as there was a clear winner well ahead of the convention. We can’t count on that being the case any more.
But improvements can not and should not come from the RNC, Reince Priebus or any other top down solution. Republicans in all of the county and state party organizations need to voice their displeasure and demand some simple changes to place the process under their own control and create a defensible system. It really wouldn’t be that hard. While making my case, some opponents seemed to think I was supporting open primaries or anything else to “help Trump win.” That’s the opposite of what we’re talking about and I said as much, as well as indicating improvements which could be made.
Absolutely. Closed primaries, no caucuses, candidates pick their own delegates once they win any. It's that easy. https://t.co/DPuZQukFNB
— Jazz Shaw (@JazzShaw) April 11, 2016
These are not remarkable or revolutionary ideas. And it really is that simple if we collectively choose to make it so. Encourage all the states to hold closed primaries where actual Republicans cast a vote for the candidate they like the best. Count the votes and determine how many delegates are to be allotted to each person. And then let the candidates name their own delegates. This could be done in one of two ways. The voters could be allowed to vote directly for the candidate who would then submit their own delegate names after the counting is concluded. Or, if you insist on electing delegates directly, allow each candidate to name their own slate of delegates with their preference clearly shown on the ballot. When you send delegates who are not wholeheartedly supporting the person the voters selected you’re not really reflecting the will of the voters, are you? That doesn’t rule out some down ballot negotiations in an open convention, but it keeps the candidates who won some popular support involved in the process rather than having their armies march off the field to join their opponents at the first opportunity.
It’s too late to perfect the system in this cycle so we’re stuck with what we have. Making even more changes to “help Trump” at this point would just make the GOP process look like even more of a joke than the various changes under discussion designed to “stop Trump.” And nobody with a vested interest in stopping Trump would sign on anyway. But we can do better next time and we absolutely should. Let the Democrats have their superdelegates and an obviously rigged system. The GOP should be the party which embraces a truly representative process.
I used to feel that the primaries should be party only, but now I see how the Party Does not have our best interests at heart. I am ok with the long primary season, though it should be maybe three months and not six. If it were short you would know a lot less about the candidates. presidenting is brutal, so the candidates need to be under stress for some length of time.
Yes, let’s take Colorado for example.
1. I understand why there’s no primary as in many states, because the state eliminated governmental involvement in parties’ primaries to save taxpayer money.
2. But the process that the CO GOP came up with is dumb. To “be heard,” you have to go to a specified place in your precinct at a particular time. (The precincts each select a county delegate. The county delegates then get together, again at a particular place and time to choose state delegates. THEN, the state delegates pick who’s going to the RNC.)
Why can’t folks just mark a simple ballot? Why do they have to go attend a meeting of any duration? What if you have work or kids to attend to?
All I know is Cruz and Trump, working together, can thwart any GOPe meddling.
If that doesn’t happen, Kasich will start writing his concession speech to Hillary.
Yeah they’re weird. But they’ve always been weird. This is just the first time we’ve had a candidate who clearly never bothered to look up the rules and complains about it. 4 years from now they’ll still be weird.
That's irrelevant, because if no candidate earns a majority of electors, the electors have NO SAY at all after that. The decision of who becomes President goes to "faithless" Congressional delegations from each state.
The caucuses will continue, however. That's how precinct captains and the various levels of party committee members are selected.
Under regulations established in the 1980s, delegates cannot take money from corporations, labor unions, federal contractors or foreign nationals. But an individual donor is permitted to give a delegate unlimited sums to support his or her efforts to get selected to go to the convention, including money to defray the costs of travel and lodging.
That should explain everything about how "smart" Cruz's "ground game" is.
I would add make all states proportional. Get rid of the WTA contests.
As far as I know, every state has ‘caucuses’ (local meetings) where issues are raised and officers and delegates elected. It’s just that most states don’t use them for presidential preference.
Asking voters to be calm in the face of outright lies is not only misguided but is also insulting when combined with a wagging finger that they, the voters should know ‘the rules’, even though they do not make the rules. It is a situation that is designed for generating riots.
Donald Trump has called it plainly and factually on two counts. One, if the will of millions of voters is ignored, there may be riots. So any plea to remain calm has to persuade millions and millions of people who have every right to be upset. Two, Trump has rightfully pointed out that the system is rigged in both parties. This is not just an observation by Donald Trump, this is dinner time table talk to millions of voters and their familes and friends across the land.
To drive these points home, a state delegate Curly Haugland let it be known on CNBC a couple of weeks back that the idea of democratic free elections to him is a “problem with the media”, and to the rest of Americans, it is a scam.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YUPB2YcFvI&nohtml5=False
For those that argue over ‘words’, our federal government is organized to be a ‘Republic’, not a Democracy but our elections are organized to be democratic. This is why people sometimes refer to our system of governance as a Democratic-Republic. We rule ourselves as a Republic meaning Rez Publica or Rule of Law. We elect ourselves as a democracy.
So the descriptor ‘democratic free’ elections means just that.
If there were no political parties, which the US Constitution does not in fact require, if there were no parties there would still be the Electoral College which is constitutionally mandated, the delegate electors of which elect the President. Two times in US history the electors have chosen a President who fell short of the popular vote, the first time in 1876 in the election of Rutherford Hayes and the second time with George W. Bush.
Party Nominee, Party, Electors, Votes
Rutherford B. Hayes, Republican, 185, 4,036,298
Samuel J. Tilden, Democratic, 184, 4,300,590
Most here know the outcome of the 2000 election between Bush and Gore. We were glad Gore lost but we never suspected there was any sort of scam behind the disparity between electoral votes and votes. It was accepted as a rare occurrence, and it was indeed a rare event. If we had been persuaded that the Electoral College cheated or changed its rules to elect G.W. Bush, many voters that value truth and integrity would have spoken up about it. But it wasn’t that way, not at the Electoral College Level. The party nomination delegate process is however, an entirely different matter.
Again with respect to the Electoral College, if the public had any inkling that the Electoral College had ‘rules’ by which they would select the President DELIBERATELY AGAINST THE WILL OF THE VOTERS, the Electoral College would be scrapped and left on the dustbin of history. One need only look at the 17th Amendment to see an analogous event.
Scrapping the Electoral College, and for that matter enacting the 17th Amendment are in the realm of emotional reactions and actually yield results that are harmful to Americans. So there is a Pavlovian response to want to quell any emotional reaction and for good reason. But are Americans to blame for having such fits of rage?
No, they are not. Human nature easily predicts violence and destruction when people have been lied to, robbed, betrayed having no recourse to correct those that commit the dirty deeds. It is as predictable as any fact of physics.
The idea of pleading to voters to ‘be calm’ in the face of a big lie that affects one of their most cherished rights makes about as much sense as asking the Earth to loosen up on its gravitational field for a few hours so that one can get from point A to point B more reasonably. It’s ludicrous to even think about.
No, Americans are not at fault to get angry and enraged. The fault lies with the persons running the scam who ignore those they’ve asked to share in the process but who have no intention of sharing anything.
To hell with the ‘rules’, it’s the lie that is the issue. If Americans had known this scam was afoot, they have every ability to form a political party that will listen to them and that will write rules that will require that those entrusted in leadership act ethically and with honor with respect to cherished rights of voters.
One should not ask voters to be calm, they won’t be and for good reason. One should instead ask those entrusted to oversee the process with respect to the will of the voters to act accordingly, else there will be hell to pay.
But it does have those rules. If no candidate gets a majority of electors (a la delegates), the electors are booted from the process and congressional delegations from the states hand-pick the President. That's why Andrew Jackson had a plurality in popular vote AND electors but "lost" to J. Q. Adams in 1824.
There are some strange primaries and caucuses, but it is representative of the people in the party. Merely because you rolled out of bed and decided to vote in your primary and you don’t get as much say as a little ol lady that’s been in the GOP for 20 years, spending her time, money, and pouring her heart into it, doesn’t mean you were cheated. Particularly in these stupid open primary states where democrats have been circumventing the process, many of which are Trump voters.
Exactly right.
The primaries were created by the media for the media cartel to have a tremendous influence on who the parties select for candidates. This year, it stopped working as the media cartel wanted it to work, because new media is reaching a critical point.
The purpose of “primaries” was to circumvent parties. It started in in the mid 1960’s when the media cartel consolidated its power.
They are one of the main mechanisms by which we have been saddled by “progressive” candidates by both parties for decades. Reagan was a rare exception.
Well, it was only recently when I came to that conclusion regarding in-party voting. This all out effort to take Trump down simmply because he wants to change things for the better, has been brutal and revealing.
Convential Conservative entities have just about destroyed themselves, and now Cruz going after the Eagle Forum makes it nearly unanimous.
Support Cruz or die.
Sometimes you have to fight dirty when you’re facing slime.
Trump is being denigrated because they know damn well he loves the U. S., and that isn’t Leftist folks.
He’s a patriot. He didn’t always see things like we did, but this trial by fire has convinced me that he is exactly who we need.
Thank God (seriously) Trump has been able to out people for who they really were all along.
The modern idea of a primary is an idea from the Progressive Movement. Even then, only a few states used primaries at all, and only one or two states used primaries to bind delegate votes. That changed with the New Progressive Era of the 1960s.
Your example is NOT comparable because the election of 1824 was a NATIONAL ELECTION, not a party nomination. It matters because the rules of the Electoral College are hardwired into the Constitution, whereas the rules of the GOP are observed now to be whatever certain persons of that party would like them to be.
You also conveniently forgot to add the rest of the story of 1824. Adams’ party went on to form the ‘Whigs’, which died.
With Congress, there is an amendment process that can be carried out by either Congress itself or by states or state conventions of voters. The voter has a say in the process.
However, according to certain GOP persons, the voter has no say in the process, yet the voter is asked to make an appearance in a charade for which they were never informed.
The LIE is the GOP telling voters that they count, when in fact, they don’t count.
IF there were TRUTH IN ADVERTISING, the GOP would be forced by law to disclose that the voter does not count and this act would then compel voters to FORM THEIR OWN PARTY with rules that could not be changed except by a referendum of party voters.
But GOP voters have been led to believe that their vote counts. They trusted those in positions of responsibility who are now betraying them. There will be no ‘calming down’.
It is not the voters that are at fault here. The voters are not like employees who are required to obey the lawful rules of employers, to heed the Boss’ orders.
The voters are like partners who are to be compensated by seeing that their will is respected, analogous to seeing contractors are compensated by payment.
Respecting ‘political will’ to voters is analogous to issuing pay to contractors. The consequences of cheating one or the other lead to riots, reform or court; likely all.
To say to voters “you do not count”, that only the ‘rules’ count, is to say to partners your compensation in terms of ‘political will’ was never in writing, it was only verbal; you are not to be paid, you’re nothing more than volunteers, and if you think different, well, too bad.
Donald Trump will reach 1237+ delegates on the 1st Ballot easily. That’s not a plurality, that is a majority. And he will go on to take over leadership of the GOP. His justifiably angry supporters are going to be put into positions of responsibility within the GOP. In time, they will render payback to the corrupt liars and scammers that treated them so poorly, a payback that will blackball the scammers from any form of government employment, contracting or association of either. Such payback will be prepared following the ‘healing’ and ‘unification’ phases of the Convention and will be executed after the general election. Count on it.
“you have to register at least six months before election day;”
That amount of time would, I think, ensure only people like Jeb got the nomination. It would also ensure that no new charismatic candidate had a chance. Only party hardliners would choose and the corrupt leadership would be maintained. The party would slowly choke to death. You want attract new members and the registration rules should not discourage them
Thirty days, one month is a better number and two weeks, 15 days is probably enough provided that the address can be verified. This should be true of the general election as well.
Otherwise I think you have good suggestions
My process would look sort of like this:
1.There should not be ANY delegates that are awarded by fiat from party officials. They should all be voted on.
2. No caucus there must be a primary.
3. All primaries must be within one month of each other, preferably on the same day.
4. All primaries should use this system.
a. The winner (plurality) gets 50% of the delegates. If a winner gets 60% of the vote they get all the delegates.
b. The candidate in second place gets 20% of the delegates.
c. The candidate in third place gets 15% of the delegates
d The final 25% are awarded proportionally to ALL candidates left in the race.
e.If a candidate drops out their delegates disappear.
f. If there are less than 4 candidates running the final 25% are awarded to the remaining candidates proportionally.
g. A candidate must win 10 states to have their name placed in nomination. If they fail to reach this number they may not be nominated at the convention.
h. If a candidate is mathematically eliminated from obtaining the requisite number of delegates their name will not appear on future ballots.
This system would bring the process to a winner prevent a candidate from running to create a “brokered convention” There is not going to be any second vote
For election day
1. No same day registration
2. No early voting
3. No absentee voting or mailed ballots.
4. No picture ID no vote (put a photo on a SS card since everyone has to have one of those anyway)
5. No exist polling
6. No votes by non citizens, but ex-felons who’ve served their complete sentence are OK though not parole.
7. Raise voting age to 21 unless in the military. The age for voting in the military should be 17
8. Have the polls open 24 hours
9. All votes are turned in within 45 minutes of the close of the election.
10. Once votes have been turned in no more will be accepted or found.
11. In any recount the total number of votes must stay the same.
12. All results are reported at the same time. No trickling in of vote totals or time zones
Just my thoughts
LOL didn’t matter the mods deleted it even though Trumpsters have posted more or less the same thing daily and repeatedly for months now.
They won't change them next week to many people watching. When they set the rules of convention then watch for the dirty work.
I agree completely about Trump. If everyone had politics figured out when they were young this would be a robot world. I knew nothing about politics and didn’t live in the USA and my info came from Newsweek magazine so I voted for a young Bill Clinton once.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.