What hasn’t changed is this: Delegates to the national convention are elected at the state conventions. Those delegates are sent to the national convention to represent the PARTY, not some large group—less than a majority—of “the people” who may not reflect the party ideal.
The mere fact that someone wins a plurality on the first ballot MUST NEVER obligate the Party to make him their nominee. A MAJORITY of the delegates must come together to make the nomination. Otherwise, you’re paving the way for a hostile takeover by outsiders.
Imagine if, in 2012, Bernie Sanders had declared himself a Republican and run for president. With no reason for Democrats to show up for the incumbent Obama, Sanders could have easily won many of the Republican primaries through mass crossover voting. Would you want the party to follow “the will of the people” then?
And your point relating to this contest is??? Your attempt at equivocating for Cruz’s latest tactics are silly. Trump doesn’t have just a few more delegates than Cruz... he has over 50% more delegates than Cruz. He has received millions more votes than Cruz, by the convention it will be several million more votes than Cruz. Trump is most likely to get to 1237 but even if he does not, to avoid sending the Republican party to the scrap heap, GOP leadership will find enough unbound delegates to get Trump to 1237.
The leadership would have loved to have stopped Trump. They insiders infiltrated Cruz’s campaign team and used him as a tool to do it. They manipulated the system in Wyoming and Colorado to the point where the voters had no actual input at all. This year has certainly been an eye opener. Leadership now knows that they went way too far but they don’t care; they are going to hang it all on Cruz. And incredibly Cruz keeps going along with it. After this is over Cruz’s reputation and credibility will be so damaged that he will not be able to win an election for dog catcher.
As far as the second, third or fourth ballots that are not going to happen... even with all the dirty tricks, Cruz still has no way to get enough of his surrogates installed as other candidates delegates to get the hundreds he would actually need to get to a majority. And only Cruz surrogates will believe that a candidate who hasn’t been able to do well in even one battle ground state has any chance at winning the election.
Cruz has only one possible way to salvage what it left of his reputation. He needs to admit that it is over and start working with Trump to unite the party. This would show that he actually cares for the country more than himself. In return Trump might very well nominate him to take the spot Scalia left open on the Supreme Court. Is it going to happen? Of course not, Cruz is going to circle the drain and make a spectacular splat when he goes down.