Colorado GOP Delegates -- The Real Story

These are our friends and fellow grassroots activists, Tea Party members and long-time Republicans, county chairs and first-time caucus attendees, young and old, very conservative and not-as-conservative, all gathered together to move our country forward, select senate candidates for the June primary election, and to elect delegates to the GOP National Convention, who will help to select our next president.

These are the Patriotic Americans that the Donald Trump Campaign compared to Nazis, using Gestapo tactics.

These are the delegates that Donald Trump totally ignored until a week before the convention.

This is the crowd who would have loved to hear a Trump speech, even if a majority were supporting his opponent, Senator Ted Cruz.

Instead, after he lost all of the Colorado delegates to Senator Ted Cruz, the Donald directed his staff and supporters to whine, and to make false accusations about a delegate selection process he didn't bother to understand, or choose to participate in.

This week, Trump was back in New York, among the people who share his values, complaining that the whole Colorado delegate selection process was a "totally corrupt rigged system" designed by the GOP establishment to prevent him from attaining his Trump-Given Right to be nominated for president.

Well, I've got some news for you Mr. Trump, and for all of the media and pundits who bought into your bogus narrative. It's going to backfire, big time.

You see, Colorado politics and the process of selecting candidates and delegates is all about showing up, starting at your local precinct caucus (held on March 1). It's a truly grassroots process, and it's been done that way for over 100 years.

Anyone, and I mean ANYONE, who is registered Republican, can show up and be part of a local precinct caucus. A precinct is the smallest political delineation for elections and holding party meetings. In an urban area it might encompass several blocks, basically your larger neighborhood. In rural Colorado it might include all or a large portion of a county. Typically, a precinct contains a few to several hundred GOP voters.

Anyone, and I mean ANYONE, can be selected by their fellow caucus attendees to be a delegate to their county and congressional district assemblies, and yes, even to the state GOP convention. Anyone. It was estimated that about 40 percent of the over 4,000 delegates and alternates at this year's convention were new to the process. Some of them drove six or more hours to get there, and stayed in motels at their own expense.

And here is the little-known fact that all the pundits and press have failed to report:

Anyone, and I mean ANYONE, who is a registered Republican, could have filled out a form and been listed as a delegate to the National GOP Convention. Anyone. You didn't even have to attend your caucus - the form was posted online at your state or county GOP website. On that form you had to designate either that you were supporting a particular candidate or were running as un-pledged. Most listed themselves as un-pledged.

That is precisely why there were over 600 national delegate candidates listed at the state convention, and about an equal number of candidates combined at the seven congressional district assemblies. Out of that thousand or so candidates, only 13 would be selected at the state convention, and 21 at the congressional assemblies (3 each), plus an equal number of alternate delegates, to go to the national convention in Cleveland. Add the Colorado GOP Chairman, and one man and one woman delegate to the RNC, and you have the total of 37 delegates frequently mentioned in the press.

Note that, only one, let me repeat that, ONLY ONE out of that 37 is part of the GOP establishment, the Colorado GOP Chairman, Steve House. All of the others were elected in a process that began with electing delegates to the state convention and the congressional district meetings at the local precinct caucuses. Delegates were also selected to attend county assemblies where candidates for local office, and the state legislature are selected through votes.

Unless you are the Donald. Then you describe it as the party establishment disenfranchising potential Trump delegates. Give me a break.

If any potential Trump voters were "disenfranchised", it was because of the failure of the Trump Team to reach out and educate their supporters about the process of electing delegates. No one told them to show up. Or maybe there just aren't that many Trump supporters in Colorado. Out of 22 people at my own caucus, not one supported Trump.

However, somehow, all those Cruz supporters managed to figure things out. The grassroots activists know who the real conservative running for president is, and they came out to support him and all of the other patriotic candidates up and down the line in Colorado. That is the real story.

Oh, and here is a message for Mr. Trump. Maybe you hadn't heard, but Colorado is a critical swing state. This fall, just who do you think is going to be out there making phone calls for you, walking precincts for you, calling into radio shows, and donating money, if you get the GOP nomination? Maybe your admiring followers will be doing all that work for you - the same people who couldn't figure out the delegate process.

But, it sure ain't gonna be the tea party activists and the stalwart Republicans who put on the caucuses, who stepped up to be delegates, who drove hundreds of miles to attend the convention. Unless you forget, those are all the hardworking people who your campaign just likened to Nazis. Good luck with that.

Every successful employer in the United States will enter ‘politics’ as a budget item if it is a ncessary cost of doing business.

Trump broke no laws. There are no laws against lobbying members of Congress or the White House to further commercial matters. It is part of the process.

Your condemnation of Trump for doing what every successful employer does as a matter of necessity is to condemn millions upon millions of hardworking people and their companies.

In my own experience, I needed to have a building permit and an architect. My architect was an award-winning architect who was very familiar with the permit process but would not take the lead because he advised me that the lot line adjustments under consideration were beat handled by a competent land zoning attorney and he was right.

I paid $15,000 for the attorney and wrote it as a business expense. On the face of it, the expense was not necessary but ‘politically’ it was necessary because the attorney I hired was in the accepted circle of the City’s Building Directorate and spoke directly to the Director.

If my architect had tried to push through what was needed, even with his valued reputation, he would have spoke to a mid-level reviewer and the matter would have hung indefinitely.

That’s known as politics in the building business and every builder knows what I am talking about and they know it’s true.

The reason is clear. Mid-level reviewers are not empowered to make high-level decisions. To get before a high-level decision maker, one needs special access. In my case, access was achieved via a high-profile attorney who was part of the inner ring of the Mayor’s Office and the City Council, in other words a political person. In Trump’s case he gained access through members of Congress.

There is no difference in the process, only the scale. And every builder, big or small, will agree with me.

So go ahead and act all sanctimonious. When you come up with an idea on how to change human nature which has existed for thousands of years, publish it. If you can’t get it published, then your idea wasn’t any good. And if you don’t like what the publishers say, maybe you should go find someone to cry and weep with. In the meantime, I’ll stick with winners and time-tested methods.

A++

from one worked in the design/build industry in NYC andcwith contracts across the USA and in foreign countries.

And zoning issues with variances and other issues “at the discretion of the (insert ruling authority)” were at the apex of the political aspects.

The “pay off” isn't always directly monetary. Giving up prime ground floor rental space to community organizers to expedite or gain approvals is but one of the back door way for pols to reward their money and vote supports. When the cost of money is high and the project is very large the cost of added weeks quickly runs into six figures and up per month.

People who haven't been involved in such large scale projects are totally unaware of the administrative approval trees and the rather subtle manner in which required reviews can be delayed for months or years.

Even the very smart and capable contractors and developers can suffer losses depending on the high profile issues of the day and the political winds. An illustrative example is the JFK Memorial Library in Dorchester Mass. Originally intended to be sited on Harvard's grounds, the alma mater of so many Kennedys, it endured ten years or so of delays before being re-sited to its final resting place.

They have chosen not to affiliate, that’s fine. But don’t presume that they are unaware.

As Independents become the majority of voters in several states, ignore them at your peril.

They will vote for a more centrist candidate from either party. And if we don’t stop the invasion of future Democrat voters from the Southern border, we will effectively shrink to where the Republican party completely loses it’s significance.

California is the best example.

Here is a link (you may have to get past a “survey wall” to read it) mentioning that CO GOP officials are considering a traditional primary vote for 2020: http://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2016/03/02/super-tuesday-leaves-colorado-gop-guessing/81157802/

“The Colorado GOP is already looking to make changes for the next presidential election cycle.
The state’s Republican Party will work to introduce a primary process to pick the 2020 presidential nominee. The change would increase Colorado’s clout and allow for greater participation among voters, said chairman House.”

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