Ryan Is Right: No White Knights Should Apply

As the Republican presidential race has narrowed to a contest between two candidates the Republican elites despise, each one with a razor-thin path to the nomination, the conversation among party figures in Washington has rapidly shifted from the desperate to the absurd. They talk of an “open convention” in Cleveland, where party leaders could parachute in a third, more favored candidate and render the entire GOP primary process null and void.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, one focus of such talk, ruled himself out at a press conference on Tuesday. “I do not want, nor will I accept, the Republican nomination,” he said. “[…] I simply believe that if you want to be the nominee — to be the president — you should actually run for it. I chose not to. Therefore, I should not be considered. Period.”

Ryan’s rebuke of this chatter showed a wisdom and respect for the voters not shared by much of the Washington political class, many of whom still dream of some Prince Charming galloping into the convention hall on a white horse to save the day. It is odd to hear high-priced political consultants spouting childlike fantasies. But that is a sign of just how desperate the times are for Republican elites, who see control of the party slipping from their grasp.

This is a period of realignment for the Republican coalition. Adapting to that realignment requires Republicans to recognize the real concerns that underlie the turmoil, to reconsider the GOP’s policy agenda, and to reevaluate what we thought we knew about the country. But the Republican Party will only be in the position to do that if it ignores the fanciful plans of party elites, whose disrespect for the voters is blinding them to reality.

Imposing a new candidate in Cleveland—a “fresh face,” in Karl Rove’s telling—would represent nothing less than an act of suicide on the part of the Republican Party. It would vindicate the wildest accusations of those who view the Republican establishment as inherently corrupt and craven, lacking any modicum of respect for their voters. It would insult the millions of Americans who have turned out to vote for Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz—an offense that would leave moderates, Independents, and the conservative base disgusted with their party to an unprecedented degree. It would shatter the party’s legitimacy.

Republicans should let the primary process play out as it always has, where the candidates for the nomination are those who run the race. Trump and Cruz are likely to enter the Republican convention with the lion’s share of delegates. Should Trump fail to reach the required number, the process could play out over multiple ballots. But it is the candidates for president who ought to be considered by the delegates on the floor, not a “white knight” chosen in a backroom deal and leveraged into the nomination by a motion from the chair.

In the 160-year history of the Republican Party, the expectation has always been that running for president is an important factor in determining whether you receive consideration by convention delegates to be the nominee. There have been 10 contested GOP conventions since the party was formed in 1856, which produced six presidents. In all but one of these cases—in 1880, the longest convention in history, when 35 ballots could not produce a victor—the eventual winner had actively run for president and won significant delegate percentages before the convention.

That the Republican elites would even consider inserting into the nomination contest a candidate who has not won a single delegate from a single primary or caucus shows how much disrespect they have for their voters. It is no accident that the two candidates who have based their candidacies on their “outsider” status and willingness to blow up the Washington establishment have won nearly two-thirds of the popular vote so far. There are probably many reasons for their success, but clearly one is the voters’ extreme disgust with their party’s elites.

If the Republican establishment were to nominate a candidate in Cleveland who hasn’t won a single vote, let alone worked for one in the course of this primary, it would amount to a declaration of war against the party’s own voters. We should not think they are above such a mistake. Indeed, the establishment’s incompetence has brought it to this point. Forcing the nomination of some white knight would only prove that their incompetence is a terminal disease.

Interesting equation is, if 1/3 of Trump voters will not vote for another republican, and trump averages 45 percent of the vote, then 15 percent of republicans will not vote for anyone else.

However, how many of those are NEW republicans because of Trump? this number would have to be deducted from the 15 percent.

Still, even if it were 10 percent, that could affect many elections nationwide and hand the GOPe a beating. Good.

A 10 percent stay at home rate among republicans if Trump is not the candidate would, depending on what affiliation charts you look at, result in a 2.6 to 4 percent loss of votes for the republican candidate, if it were not Trump.

Feel free to rip apart or dissect.

Let me repeat this: Lincoln won the nomination on the third ballot.

2DV I like you, I’ve enjoyed reading your posts for years now.

But with that said there is a HUGE difference between today’s world of nearly instant communication and then. This year’s convention will be televised and analyzed in real-time.

The Convention that Lincoln was nominated in was to put it charitably the equivalent of a dark closet with smoke filled chambers and the decisions being made in secrecy. The people of the United States had no idea what was happening until the decision was made until weeks late and in many parts of the U.S. not for month’s as the speed of communication was slow.

And yes there was the Telegraph, that helped immensely but it was still in it’s youth and hadn’t spread out like it did during the War years and beyond.

A nomination Floor fight will be an ugly thing to see and very few will be happy or accepting of it’s results.

The Republican Party, like the Democrat Party, the Right-to-Life Party, New York’s Conservative Party, and - in the old days - Ross Perot’s Reform Party, is a private organization, not a governmental one. Like all of us, it obeys the laws of the US and of each of the states in which it exists.
All private organizations exercise freedom of association, and you can’t join if it won’t have you. Let alone become the head of the organization.
Now, political parties exist to win elections, and as such they exist to attract adherents - but they do not exist to attract proponents of inimical ideals who want to rule or ruin the party. It is in fact necessary that they oppose such people. In that sense it is like FR - JimRob has his moderators, and they impose (what they take to be) the minimum discipline necessary to keep the forum from turning, over time, into DU.
So there is a tension between the motive of inclusiveness, such that (reductio ad absurdum) JimRob is not the only member, and discipline, such that the organization does not become host to (reductio ad absurdum) porno images and socialist claptrap to the extent that only a Democrat, and not JimRob himself, would want to be a member. JimRob and his mods have, over the long run, done a superb job. But I am confident that JR himself would say that it hasn’t always been easy.
IMHO the application of the above to the Republican Party, and Donald Trump (and, FTM Ted Cruz) is this:
Altho Ronald Reagan was a liberal Democrat in the Truman era, he spoke extensively an conservative principles in the 1950s and would have registered as a Republican in 1960 but for the perceived tactical advantage of remaining a Democrat while advocating for Nixon. By 1964 he was making “the speech,” A Time for Choosing, for Goldwater. He had a conservative track record as governor of California under his belt by 1976, and when he won the nomination in 1980 he became the most conservative nominee, and then POTUS, since Calvin Coolidge.
The case is otherwise with Trump. Trump is attracting people the Republican Establishment has claimed to want to attract, but he is not a Reaganesque conservative firebrand but a populist. Cruz is likewise unappealing to the Establishment, but that is because the Republican Establishment has (as Rush puts it) become essentially the Washington Generals to the Democrats’ Harlem Globe Trotters. That is, the GOP has been sailing under a false flag of conservatism. A real conservative voter finds himself with a false choice of a ~~liberal~~ socialist and a ~~conservative~~ passive socialist.
GOPe finds itself under attack from a Cruz movement of conservatism, and a Trump “populist” - in its own way Alinskyite - movement. The Republican Party, like the government itself, is a representative “republic” model. In his attack on Cruz for playing the game as the rules in Colorado specified, Trump appeals to the “democratic” pretensions of this “representative” system. Trump is simply looking at the chess board, yelling “cheater!” and turning the table over. Great theater. And the “mainstream media” loves it. Trump is playing a game that the media is willing to play patsy for. Temporarily.
It is not at all obvious to me that this game can continue into the general election, any more than it did with John McCain when he was running in the general election. IMHO “the media” loves the theater Donald is putting on. Now. But it will always default to the real thing in October. The real thing is unrestricted Alinsky rules. Conservatives don’t do that. We go to Washington, petition the government (which studiously ignores us) for a redress of grievances, pick up the trash leaving no trace (other than increased cleanliness) behind, and go home.

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