Posted on 03/31/2016 12:23:51 PM PDT by LdSentinal
Donald Trump’s announcement that he no longer stands by a pledge to support the GOP has thrown his hold on South Carolina’s 50 delegates in doubt.
The Palmetto State was one of several that required candidates to pledge their loyalty to the party’s eventual nominee in order to secure a slot on the primary ballot. Though Trump won all of the state’s delegates in the Feb. 20 primary, anti-Trump forces are plotting to contest their binding to Trump because of his threat on the pledge Tuesday.
The loyalty pledge is nothing new in South Carolina, where it has been required for decades, but took on new focus in light of Trump’s public musings about a third party run or withdrawing his support from the eventual nominee if he is stopped at a contested convention.
When asked about if he still would pledge to support the eventual Republican nominee during a town hall Tuesday with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Trump said “No. I don’t anymore,” adding that he has been “treated very unfairly.”
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
South Carolina better watch out. Trump will threaten a lawsuit and never follow through.
Ted never actually came out and said he wouldn’t. He may have insinuated that he was considering not supporting Trump if he was not the nominee, but he didn’t say it directly. As a lawyer, Ted knows where the line is, and how to walk right up to it without crossing it.
The double standard is striking. Trump dose not support the nominee he gets penalized.
Cruz or Kasich do not support the nominee and they are called principled conservatives.
Amazing!
Not quite, but I understand your meaning. However, Cruz currently has no pledged SC delegates. Violating the pledge only harms Trump because he has not done a good job on electing the actual delegates. Most elected delegates are NOT Trump followers. If the loyalty pledge is deemed to be broken by the SC GOP in advance of the convention, all of the currently Trump-bound delegates will be freed up to vote as they choose ON THE FIRST BALLOT.
The other candidates said the same thing.
All three candidates are obviously infected with gopism...also known as terminal stupidity.
These fools don’t understand that they have received support because the rest of the Stupid Party forgot their promises, and We the People want someone who keeps their promises.
I am done with these fools - die gop, DIE!!!
Sorry, but that could be claimed each and every election.
Hey, I don’t like his views, so I am not bound.
Doesn’t work that way.
Either they are a legitimate organization or they are a rogue organization.
Trump doesn’t have to claim loyalty. They can’t claim loyalty.
He won the delegates and they are bound. Period!
Until such a time as he does something to break his pledge, he’s assured of those votes.
Has he taken steps to break his oath? No.
He signed a form. He did not sign one to rescind.
All 3 of the top candidates refused to repeat the pledge. No one threatened to “break it”.
Trump has 12 such states, Cruz still lacks, having only 5 such states. Likely, Cruz will reach 8. Colorado and Wyoming in the next two weeks will both go overwhelmingly to Cruz. (I live in Colorado, am a delegate to state).
Colorado and Wyoming are generally left out of the NYT, RealClearPolitics, USAToday and other calculations, the result being, that Cruz' position is artificially somewhat diminished in these evaluations. There are 66 delegates between the two states, Cruz will get virtually all of them. In terms of delegate count, it's actually bigger than Wisconsin, though the "TV splash" will be less.
And Rubio said the same thing before he dropped out. He said if it was Trump, he wouldn’t support him.
Rubio also said that the winner of the Florida primary would be the Republican nominee.
People say all kinds of crazy things when they are running for office.
I'll vote for him as an independent.
See how this works? Other candidates get to say they won’t back Trump, but let him say that and it’s “ooohh, we’ll withdraw our delegates.”
Every single GOPe force is aligned against Trump. If he wins this, it will be the political miracle of American history.
Just one more thing Trump did not think through. It was a simple thing to figure out. He’s not going to win the general election without getting the GOP nomination so there was no downside to taking the pledge and sticking by it. By failing to do so he jeopardizes his win in SC and now the other candidates feel they are not bound to support him since he refused to support them. At best he goes into the general election with a divided party.
Um...Cruz also broke the pledge
They keep pushing the envelope.
Trump swept SC...all 50 delegates. The point of the story is that those delegates won’t be bound to Trump if he reneges on his pledge to support the eventual nominee. They might still vote for Trump, but they won’t be bound by the election returns, even on the first ballot.
It’s just one more illustration as to how clueless Trump is about the whole process. Sometimes I think he entered the race on a lark and is now trying to figure out how to get the most out of the experience without having to risk actually becoming President. Either that or he really enjoys shooting himself in the foot, but I don’t think anyone’s got that many toes to lose, even Trump.
Jeb, Jeb, Jeb, FU USA, go Cruz, stop Trump.
What is this something like the 87th time in the past week that The Clueless Wonder is learning the consequences of opening his big mouth without thinking first?
We need a clown like that as leader of this great nation. /sarcasm
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