Chuckle are you want Quigley. The opponents of Trump have 5,000,000 more votes that Trump. He is the weakest “front runner” we have ever had, weaker than Romney. And when he gets to the convention without the majority of delegates, you can rest assured that he will not be nominated. Now, will Cruz? I honestly don’t know. But I know that the Cruz forces are working for a 2nd ballot victory. It is not dirty, it is the way the system works, and has worked since the beginning of the two parties.
Ah, another one laying the groundwork for their own cognitive acceptance of election theft.
You say "it is the way the system works, and has worked since the beginning of the two parties.". System, huh. Don't make make it sound like some profound constitutional article or amendment.
The candidates are really just trying to achieve ballot access for the federal election held in each state. The party bureaucrats however are jockeying for power and money. And somehow we have managed to grant these "parties" monopoly like status like MTA or Con-Ed. This whole thing is very very corrupt.
The system that you are seemingly willing to fall back on to get your guy in there ( umm, do you really think the GOPe would run him? ), is made up of rules solely to empower a small handful of fat cat bureaucrats to select someone with zero votes over someone with millions. Extremely corrupt.
This potential theft is something that Cruzers are now outwardly embracing. Should it happen, falling back on the "rules" excuse is certainly what many will use to sleep at night, but it won't change the fact that it is wrong. The only winner in that case is the party, especially the GOPe. And the sad fact is that Cruz and his Cruzers who conspire to block the vote/delegate leader will be saving the establishment, and nothing else. It would be the clearest example of a pyrrhic victory imaginable.
Let's look at the situation.
Results of the Republican Party presidential primaries, 2016 Donald Trump ... 7,861,671 (37.11%) Primary=18 Caucus=3 Ted Cruz ....... 5,779,837 (27.28%) Primary= 3 Caucus=8 John Kasich .... 2,821,264 (13.32%) Primary= 1 Caucus=0 Marco Rubio .... 3,469,278 (16.38%) Primary= 1 Caucus=2 Ben Carson ....... 692,693 ( 3.27%) Jeb Bush ......... 254,515 ( 1.20%) Rand Paul ......... 56,451 ( 0.27%) Chris Christie .... 52,679 ( 0.25%) Mike Huckabee ..... 47,263 ( 0.22%) Carly Fiorina ..... 35,287 ( 0.17%) Rick Santorum ..... 15,774 ( 0.07%) Jim Gilmore ........ 2,671 ( 0.01%)
Mathematically there is no way imaginable that anyone but Trump will be the leader in both delegates, and popular votes at the end of the primaries. It is a very dark road to go down to nominate someone not on top of that pile there. If it were reversed, and Trump was in 2nd place there is no way in hell I would be rooting for him to topple the leader. If he had zero votes? Not a chance would I accept it. Yet that is what they are preparing us for. And yes, Saint Ted is part of this cabal unless he changes course rapidly.
Rules or not, it is fundamentally dishonest and morally bankrupt to consider this. Rules or not, it is undemocratic, and it is also something far far worse and patently obvious to anyone with a functioning brain! What is that? It is illogical. If you actually want to win the general election, you don't nominate someone not capable of getting the votes in the primary when the only voters are (R)+(C). Because in November, when they kick the doors wide open to (D)+(L) it will be a bloodbath for the others. Any thought that Trump voters will forget the theft makes it worse. It comes down to asking who would vote for Cruz or Kasich who hasn't already done so. (D) and (L) voters? Yeah, right.
The GOPe has a reason to lose the general ( because they still win ), but that excuse does not hold water for anyone else, especially the Cruzers who are allegedly Constitutionalists. I see it coming right out of their mouthes now that they would rather lose with Cruz than win with Trump. That translates in English to they would rather lose the Second Amendment to Hillary than win with Trump.
Cruzers are devolving into useful idiots for the GOPe. And the dirty little secret they have buried in their minds is that all these rules were not set up to stop Trump, they were set up to stop the next Reagan pretender. Guess who that is. The GOPe must be destroyed. That half of the uniparty is half of our entire problem and we are within reach of ending their corruption. Cruz looks like he is tossing them a lifeline, wittingly or unwittingly.
I hope that people start thinking clearly. Forget hanging chads and the Florida Supreme Court, they were keystone cops compared to the GOPe machine.
“Rules or not, it is fundamentally dishonest and morally bankrupt to consider this. Rules or not, it is undemocratic, and it is also something far far worse and patently obvious to anyone with a functioning brain! What is that? It is illogical. If you actually want to win the general election, you don’t nominate someone not capable of getting the votes in the primary when the only voters are (R)+(C).”
Well, things may have been different in 1860, but Lincoln won under the circumstances you listed above. Different topic if Lincoln was a good president or not.
1. The process began with something like a seventeen candidates with about 10 being serious. With that number it is obvious that the vote would be fractured. But what is also obvious is that Trump set himself up as the one separate from all the rest and the primary has developed into a Trump/Not Trump contest. Even now, the combination of Cruz and Kasich easily beats Trump in the recent primaries. The point is, Trump is not that unbeatable force that you guys would like to believe.
2. If Trump gets to 1237 he will be the nominee. But if he does not he does not have the right of kings to be anointed. He has to get to 1237 just like every other nominee. If he can do it, more power to him. If he can't, I suspect that the nominee will be Ted Cruz. It is not dishonest or immoral. Republicans have played by these rules since the convention system was set up. Ronald Reagan lost to Jerry Ford by 170 votes, fought hard, but in the end held up Ford's hand in unity and fought with him in the Fall.
I would say that I don't like being called a “useful idiot” but that's ok. But again, the one way for your man to know he will win will be to have a majority when he comes into the convention. This is not who can get closest like horse shoes, it is who can get 1237. It is not dishonest. It is an orderly process. Again, thank you for disagreeing without being disagreeable. We are going to have to pull together after the convention to beat Hillary. One of our men will win and then we will have to work together.