Posted on 03/15/2016 10:25:48 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The two leading GOP campaigns intend to muscle the Ohio governor out of the race.
Advisers to Donald Trump and Ted Cruz say there's no way they'll allow John Kasich to even compete at a contested national convention -- let alone prevail.
Trump and Cruz are betting that their dual dominance in the delegate hunt will permanently box out the Ohio governor, who has no mathematical path to the nomination and is openly pursuing a floor fight at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. And their aides say Kasich won't even make it to the floor.
"There is virtually zero chance he can even be nominated," Saul Anuzis, a former Michigan Republican national committeeman who's advising Cruz on his convention strategy, told POLITICO. "It's a two-man race."
Their confidence is rooted in the fact that Trump and Cruz are nearly certain to control the lion's share of the 2,472 delegates participating in the July convention. Together, they've earned more than 1,000 delegate slots to Kasich's 136. And those delegates will ultimately approve the rules that govern a contested convention.
In addition, a rule adopted at the 2012 convention -- pushed by supporters of Mitt Romney to box out Ron Paul -- requires that any candidate eligible for the nomination win the majority of delegates in eight states or territories. In 31 contests so far, Kasich's only win came Tuesday night in Ohio -- his home state -- and it's unlikely he'll command majority support in seven of the remaining 20 contests.
There's a small chance Cruz could fail to meet the target as well. He's only won majority support in four contests so far. Trump, with a dominant win in the Northern Mariana Islands early Tuesday, became the first candidate to cross the threshold.
To be sure, the convention rules will get a thorough review and revision when delegates convene in Cleveland, raising the possibility that the threshold to participate could be lowered, making room for Kasich. But with Trump and Cruz delegates at the helm, it's unlikely they'll adjust it to help a rival.
"The Cruz folks would never allow the rules to be changed and of course we wouldn't either," said Barry Bennett, who's coordinating Trump's convention strategy. "The laws of math are not amendable."
Trump's resounding wins in Florida, Illinois and North Carolina on Tuesday may preclude a contested convention altogether. If he secures the support of a majority of delegates over the next three months, he would enter Cleveland as the presumptive nominee and head off any challenge to his supremacy. But Kasich has predicated his candidacy on the notion that no one will have a majority entering the convention. What's been unclear until now is that even if he's right, Kasich may have little reason to hope he'll get the party's nod.
A Kasich spokesman said the naysaying only fuels the governor further. "With so many states still to go, and the map becoming increasingly Kasich-friendly, there's little doubt we will be going all the way to Cleveland," said the spokesman, Rob Nichols. " The same people trying to write us off at the convention were also trying to write us off for the first debate, for New Hampshire, after South Carolina and countless other times. How'd that work out? We're very comfortable with our place, our strategy and our future."
In that vein, Kasich's campaign foreshadowed its plans for a convention brawl late Tuesday, naming Stu Spencer and Charlie Black -- two veterans of the last contested convention, the 1976 fight between President Gerald Ford and an insurgent Ronald Reagan -- to his national strategy team.
Tom Rath, a Kasich adviser from New Hampshire and veteran of the Republican convention process, said Trump and Cruz's advisers may be overlooking the role of politics at the convention. If a contested convention arrives, and Kasich is dramatically outpolling Trump and Cruz against Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, convention delegates may make judgments based on political calculus.
"It's a political convention and sooner or later, the realities of the moment politically, which we cannot foresee now, will overwhelm all the process in the world," Rath said. "You cannot make a judgment about what could happen until you know the political context within which that action is happening."
Charlie Dent, a Pennsylvania Republican Congressman and Kasich supporter, added that convention delegates must consider who can win in November as part of their process. "The rule of the party is to make sure to advance the best candidate for the general election. I think all the delegates are going to have to sit down and think this through very carefully.
Rath said that if Trump and Cruz are unable to break a deadlock to hand one of them the nomination, convention delegates can suspend their rules -- including the eight-state threshold -- to give other candidates the chance to put their names forward. Paul Ryan, who as House speaker presides over the convention, would preside over that process -- and his determinations on suspending convention rules could carry the day. Rath added that a deadlocked situation could also elevate Kasich as critical tie breaker -- perhaps the key to assembling a winning coalition.
Morton Blackwell, a Republican national committeeman from Pennsylvania who has attended every national convention since 1964, said he foresaw the obstacle that the rules would cause and pressed to revise them at a meeting in January, before any primary contests had been held. He was ultimately shot down. He says he's concerned that any attempt to lower the threshold now -- at the expense of Trump and Cruz -- would be viewed as an attempt by insiders to rig the convention against the two anti-establishment candidates.
"Reintroducing it now would be a cause of war," he said. "I don't want the scandal of a change in the rules ... I think we're much more likely to lose if there's an attempt to change the rules no matter who it helps or hurts."
and then show the proper way to slice, dice, and otherwise prepare a tossed vegetable salad.
NO STYLE OR CLASS TO HIM AT ALL..
AND HE IS GOING TO SOON NEED TO GET A TOUPEE, SO TELL ME WHY ARE YOU TRASHING TRUMP'S HAIR?
AS A FORMER HAIRDRESSER OF 42 YEARS, TELL ME WHERE I CAN BUY, LIQUID CEMENT, NEVER HEARD OF IT...
maybe you go back to the 1940’s when hair dressers use liquid lacquer..that was before my time, and I'm older than dirt...
(oh well...what ever... p.s. you always love to trash us Trump supporters, so tonight was my turn to hit back at ya...wink~wink.)
“Kasich needs 104% ....”
He should hang his head in shame for staying in as long as he did.
How come the debates wouldn’t allow candidates with a small percentage in the main debate, who had SOME chance, but yet they allow Kasich who has NO CHANCE.
What’s wrong with this picture?
“Trump should PASS on the FoxNews UTAH debate”
I think elsewhere here on FR today it’s said that he’s not going to show up and instead is going to speak at AIPAC. Now that’s going to be a bitching debate right? I mean who is Megyn Kelly going to try and Eff up? I will bet dollars to doughnuts that FOX execs are on the phone to Trump trying to get him to come, because w/o him, FOX has a nothingburger. I mean would you watch those two remaining turds take softball questions and trash Trump?
Isn’t Kasich just the kind of guy the Establishment would love to stick us with? A guaranteed landslide for Hillary.
John Kasich wants to try to win the required delegates at a brokered Convention.
If Cruz doesn’t make it I hope he will become SCOTUS.
No Trump spokesman mentioned in this article.
I think elsewhere here on FR today it’s said that he’s not going to show up and instead is going to speak at AIPAC. Now that’s going to be a bitching debate right? I mean who is Megyn Kelly going to try and Eff up?
I will bet dollars to doughnuts that FOX execs are on the phone to Trump trying to get him to come, because w/o him, FOX has a nothingburger. I mean would you watch those two remaining turds take softball questions and trash Trump?
You're right. AIPAC is the BEST DEAL for Trump! Hillary will be there, and possibly Bernie too, although the Bern-outs are encouraging Sanders to NOT go. Teddy can fund his own television spots with his Goldman Sachs loans from now on. BTW, Teddy needs to win 79% of ALL the remaining delegates. (impossible, unless Trump self-destructs)
He would be stopped by the Senate.
Trump’s rise has wrung the skullduggery out of the Republican nomination process, and highlighted the skullduggery of the Demwit nomination process. When Trump is elected in November, the Clinton nomination will be seen as the problem, but the Demwits will be riven with disorder and disagreement. In 2020, the nominee will probably be some pair of young-ish insurgents. By 2024 they’ll probably try some more remedial candidates and lose.
Kasich hopes to pull liberals into the process, and not just blue state libs. He would of course accept the POTUS nomination, but realistically his best case scenario would be someone’s running mate. Having a Trump-Cruz ticket is still a possibility, hearkening back to the D ticket Stevenson-Kefauver in the 1950s.
i enjoyed that
Couldn’t have put it any better! ! GO DONALD!!!
Kasich is delusional on many levels.
Even if there were a brokered convention (imho a one in a hundred shot for various reasons discussed elsewhere but mostly because Trump will show his “art of the deal” skills if needed) Kasich would be one of a hundred folks that could be chosen.
His pathetic primary performance from sea to shining sea will hardly be an argument in his favor.
“I loathe him. A complete phony.”
So, is it okay for Cruz supporters to loathe Donald Trump? Say, stay away from voting in November? I mean, that is hard to contemplate given how pure and blameless Trump is, but I’m just wondering if trying to shove your imperfect candidate down our throats is the wisest thing to do?
It's real tough winning an election when ya have BOTH sides against ya.
Fortunately more and more people don't believe Santa is really gonna give em that pony he's been promising for 50 years now.
Sounds good! Since Faux News probably plans to spend the entire debate bashing Trump, and probably already colludes with the other debaters on this, he should just keep rolling on the campaign. They need him more than he needs them.
Kasich will be locked out just as Romney locked out Rand Paul.
Already Trump has won the GOP nominee threshold of having 100% of the delegates in 8 states, as per Rule 40 B:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3409540/posts
“The Northern Marianas are a collection of 15 islands in the Pacific Ocean, located at about the focal point of the Pacific Rim. It’s a U.S. territory, 179 square miles of land — an area smaller than New York City — that happens to jut out above the surface of the water. And on Tuesday morning, before you even woke up, it made Donald Trump the first man to qualify for the Republican presidential nomination.
See, in the Northern Marianas, Tuesday began 14 hours before it began on the East Coast. So its Super Threesday caucus was done overnight, and Trump won all nine delegates. In doing so, the Northern Marianas became the eighth state or territory in which Trump won a majority of the delegates. (The others: South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Hawaii and Mississippi.) And according to the rules of the Republican convention, a candidate must “demonstrate the support of a majority of the delegates from each of eight (8) or more states, severally, prior to the presentation of the name of that candidate for nomination.” No eight states, no nomination.
That’s the fabled Rule 40, which governs how the nomination process works, down to the length of time allotted candidates who wish to speak about their nominations. The eight-state thing is in Section B of the rule, and it is a pretty high bar to meet. (The party’s rules count territories as states under Rule 1.) After all, it’s not that Trump hasn’t won at least eight states; he has. But only in eight (including the Marianas) does he have a majority of delegates. In the others he has won — New Hampshire, Nevada, Arkansas, Vermont, Virginia, Kentucky, Louisiana and Michigan — he has a plurality of delegates. Not good enough.”
Charlie Dent, a Pennsylvania Republican Congressman and Kasich supporter, added that convention delegates must consider who can win in November as part of their process>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Yuge voter turnout for Trump. He had far more turnout than Hitlery. Yet the GOPe ignore that, to their peril.
If Trump is not the nominee because of GOPe convention intrigue, then the Republican party will loose to Hitlery , because all of those Trump supporters will stay home....guaranteed, just like happened in the last two election cycles with McCain and Romney. Hitlery is counting on that.
“.. Having a Trump-Cruz ticket is still a possibility..”
I once thought that was possible, but then Trump started insulting Cruz (when Cruz’s poll numbers rose). At first Cruz ignored it; then Cruz made jokes about it; then Cruz fought back and a lot went down.
Of course, we never know. :)
After Rubio dropped out, Cruz’s chances greatly increased for being the nominee himself.
I’m reading talk about people wanting a 3rd party if Trump is the nominee. Of course, Trump has said in the past that he would consider running 3rd party.
If 3rd party happens for any reason, Hillary will probably win, IF she’s not in prison, of course.
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