Posted on 12/15/2015 3:41:55 PM PST by Kaslin
"Buchanan, if you ever hear of a group getting together to stop X, be sure to put your money on X."
So, Richard Nixon told me half a century ago, after he had been badly burned in just such a futile and failed enterprise.
It was the Cleveland Governors Conference of 1964.
Sen. Barry Goldwater had just defeated Gov. Nelson Rockefeller in the final and decisive winner-take-all primary in California.
As the story is told, Stu Spencer, Rocky's man in California, had come to his candidate and said, "Governor, I think it's time to call in the Eastern establishment."
To which Rocky replied, "You're looking at it, buddy. I'm all that's left!"
Nixon was invited, and, according to Romney, privately urged him to get into the race. Nixon denied it.
The governors, and Goldwater himself, suspected Nixon was pushing Romney onto the tracks to derail his bandwagon. And, presumably, after Romney had been run over, the convention, to heal the bleeding wound, would turn to a centrist compromise candidate -- Nixon.
"Nixon is sounding more and more like Harold Stassen every day," said Goldwater. Nixon pivoted swiftly to repair the damage, offered to introduce Goldwater to the convention, did so in a brilliant speech, then campaigned harder for Mr. Conservative than did Barry himself.
And while Nixon enlisted in Goldwater's campaign, Rockefeller, Romney and Scranton, arrogantly refusing to accept defeat graciously, crippled any chance Goldwater might have had by demanding that the platform condemn the John Birch Society as equally extreme as the Communist Party and Ku Klux Klan.
The party said no. And the establishment cut Barry dead in the fall.
Thus did the GOP establishment earn the eternal enmity of the right.
And thus did Richard Nixon emerge in 1968 as the first choice of Barry Goldwater and the centrist Republican most acceptable to the conservative movement. The rest, as they say, is history.
Which brings us to that dinner last week at The Source on Capitol Hill where Republican Party elites discussed how Donald Trump, even if he wins the lion's share of votes and delegates, might be denied the nomination in a "brokered convention."
The absurdity of such a conspiracy would be matched only by its stupidity. Has the GOP establishment learned nothing from history?
Deadlocked conventions -- like the 1924 Democratic convention, which went on for 104 ballots -- virtually ended with the elimination, by FDR's party in 1936, of the two-thirds rule for nomination.
That rule kept ex-President Martin Van Buren, who could not muster 67 percent of the delegates, from capturing the nomination in 1844.
After eight deadlocked ballots in a three-way contest, that Baltimore convention turned to a "dark horse," Speaker James K. Polk, who promised immediate annexation of Texas by the United States and that he would take us to war with Mexico to guarantee it.
With the two-thirds rule dead, the only way to have a convention without a nominee on the first ballot is a three- or four-way split in delegates.
But assume at the GOP convention in Cleveland that Trump runs first, Ted Cruz second, Marco Rubio third and Ben Carson fourth.
Rather than wait for Karl Rove & Co. to tell us whom the party shall nominate, Trump would phone Cruz, offer him second spot on the ticket in return for his delegates, and if Cruz declined, ask for Rubio's phone number.
Candidates who have gone through a yearlong campaign, and sustained the defeats and suffered the abuse, are not going to let a Beltway cabal decide the nominee.
Carson has already warned he will walk away from the party if such a decision were imposed upon the convention.
Moreover, the old establishments are dead. Conservatives killed the GOP establishment in 1964. The Vietnam War and George McGovern killed the Democratic establishment in 1972.
What is left are elites, collectives of officeholders past and present, donors, lobbyists, think-tankers angling for jobs, party hacks and talking heads.
What the Republican collectivity has to realize is that it is they and the policies they produced that are the reason Trump, Carson and Cruz currently hold an overwhelming majority of Republican votes.
It was the elites of both parties who failed to secure our borders and brokered the trade deals that have de-industrialized America and eviscerated our middle class.
It was the elites of both parties who got us into these idiotic wars that have blown up the Middle East, cost us trillions of dollars, thousands of dead, and tens of thousands of wounded among our best and bravest.
That Republican elites would sit around a dinner table on Capitol Hill and discuss how to frustrate the rising rebellion against what they have done to America, and decide among themselves who shall lead us, is astonishing.
To borrow from the Gipper, they are not the solution to our problems. They are the problem.
will?
They pretty much have already.
We’re only talking dismembering the bones now.
Americans are sick and tired of the elites.
Rove had better move to Alaska...where he might be safe...and take the Bushes with him.
Patrick J: Amen.
Sky-high, and not a year too soon.
They are the problem.
**********************
And they are owned by The Cheap Labor Express
Our representatives work for them
We Cantorized our weasel, many more districts must do the same
They must be dumb as rocks or we’re missing something. The part we’re missing is they don’t care if the Democrats win the WH as long as they maintain control of the GOP.
May I add, just to get it off my chest,the politician tied for first on my Politicians Who Deserve the Guillotine List is McConnell, The Chinless Wonder.
What’s a GOP and is there any value in it?
Lead us into this battle.
I have read several of your books as I have mentioned before.
At this Christmas time, let me say thank you on behalf of the rest of us.
Shine your light on the way...and call forth other freepers who have a light to shine.
Shine that light...
There are many Freeper who might not have passed the SEAL test...but they ready to do what they are called to do.
Some are old (that would be me and others like me)...but we would give our lives for the dream that is America.
I think Trump and Cruz already have a delegate agreement in exchane for a VP ticket.
Rubio won’t have the delegates to make that deal.
Nobody ,says it better than Pat.
Reread this knowing that the establishment is the: Rockefellers.
Yes. And I wish they’d hurry up so we can start again at least while I’m still around.
The sooner the GOP dies the better. We can bring out a new party.
Shucks, thanks. All I can do is scribble. Otherwise, I’m in no position to lead.
“they don’t care if the Democrats win the WH as long as they maintain control of the GOP.”
You’ve hit the nail on its head for sure. They don’t want a conservative and that even includes Rubio. Look at Jeb’s ads to see who is unacceptable to the establishment.
Well said, Rooster
WHAT have they done right (correct) lately?
Much blood of patriots has been spilled to preserve,
protect and defend America. It must not be wasted.
My father was a combat veteran of WWII. Before him,
my great-great grandfather was a Confederate soldier
who fought honorably at Shiloh; although he had no
slaves. He was defending his home from those he
considered invaders; but after that war, my father
fought in N. Africa, Italy & Germany. If the bomb
hadn’t been used; he would have had to go to Japan.
America is REALITY more than a dream. We must stand
and deliver, facing what is real.
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