Posted on 04/01/2016 5:03:48 AM PDT by Bratch
Townhall reporter Guy Benson today admitted the Cruz campaign is stealing Trump delegates in states that Trump won.
The Ted Cruz campaign is running Cruz supporters as Trump delegates in states that Trump won. That way they can steal the nomination from Trump in Cleveland although they’ve only won a fraction of the states Trump has won.
Guy Benson: This has been percolating for several months. He has a very sharp legal team that know the rules inside and out in a way the Trump campaign clearly does not. It’s not just Louisiana. And it’s not just finagling to just get Rubio delegates or unbound delegates. What they’re also doing is getting people elected as Trump delegates who are not, in fact, Trump loyalists. So they would be bound to Donald Trump on the first ballot only. After which, although they are technically Trump delegates, they’ve been sort of put in place to jump.
And these are the same people who call Trump supporters ‘morons’ one day and beg them to support Ted Cruz the next.
CONFIRMED: Cruz Camp Stealing Trump Delegates at State Level
But the DONEald is so smart and successful he don’t need to pay attention to any stinkin rules.
We are seeing the early stages of Trump implosion.
he thinks he is using them, but in essence the establishment is using cruz and don’t be surprised when cruz is stabbed right in the back and don’t complain that the GOP has done this as those who vote for cruz is inly helping the establishment to carry on with their corruption.
You think a majority is an "artificial threshold"?
What if there were 5 candidates and the one with the most delegates had 22% of the vote? Should he automatically get the nomination?
What if he is in favor of (insert hot button issue here, e.g. gun control, abortion, high tariffs) and 75% of the party is opposed to it? The party should automatically choose the guy who supports something that is abhorrent to the vast majority?
Can you think objectively? Rules are created for the best objective results for the entire party. Not just for one candidate with a personality cult.
There is only one rule. The guy with the most votes is the nominee or your party loses.
We know a Cruz administration would be filled with leftovers from the Bush crowd and neocons everywhere with Jeb, Mitt, and the big money donors calling the shots from behind the scenes. Sorry, I don’t want the Bush Presidency Part III.
The Plan was to run the tables to 1237. Its hard to stay on plan while having to walk everything back with a foot in his mouth.
If “stealing” then who is going to jail?
Nobody?
Then not “stealing”.
Didn't you read the article? Why do you think Cruz is working so hard to get as many of his supporters selected as delegates as possible? If he can get a majority of the delegate slots filled with his supporters, regardless of who they are obligated to vote for on the first ballot, then there is nothing the GOPe can do about it.
That was 40B. Rule 40 has always been nominee must have majority of delegates (1237).
We’re all gonna have to find a way to get along in the new third party we’ll be a part of after Cruz and Trump get screwed out of the nomination and tens of millions of us walkout on the GOP.
The electoral college system is different and does not subvert the will of the people, it restores leverage to the states’ sovereignty, reflecting the fact that we are a republic, not a pure democracy.
The idea of the electoral college system is that by using a winner take all count within the state, the state can leverage the will of the majority of its people vs. the will of the nation as a whole. Without the electoral college, a few very populous states could dominate the government in favor of regional agendas that were contrary to the interests of other regions.
Let’s say 99% of the people in the ten most populous Eastern states wanted Rocky Balboa as president, who would as president change the National Anthem to be the theme from Rocky, and 60% of the people in the other 40 states wanted Appolo Creed, who would keep the National Anthem as is, the pure democratic vote might favor the wishes of the minority of states, and all 50 states would have a new National Anthem. remember, the regional issue could be something important, such as slavery.
The electoral college system was intended to protect state sovereignty from the “tyranny of the majority”.
The decision by some states to hold winner take all primaries serves a similar purpose.
What Cruz is doing, sending lawyers to bribe and otherwise leverage delegates to support him instead of the voters they claimed to represent has no such noble purpose, and is merely an attempt to thwart the will of the people. They may be technically ‘within the rules’, but only because the rules are bent, and such shenanegans will not be viewed favorably by the voters once they come to light. This is why the Cruz campaign doesn’t want this to become a big story.
essence is just what goes up your nose.
The "artificial threshold" is 1237 delegates. Yes it's "artificial" in a sense, but it's not arbitrary. That's the important point to remember here. That number (1237) is a majority of the delegates. Not simply a plurality (50%+1), but a mathematical majority. Mathematics aren't arbitrary. The number is what it is, mathematically.
To your point though, it can be said it was "artificially" set. Certainly. But that's all anyone has to work with, ultimately, when setting a contest and making the rules thereof. The 3 point shot line in basketball is "artificially" set. The lines demarking fair or foul balls in baseball are "artificially" set. But no one cries when the ball shot or hit outside or in these lines get counted as fair or foul when they fall outside these artificial (yet mathematical) boundaries.
Look, I get that you don't like Cruz as a candidate and I'm not going to try to convince you otherwise. That ship has sailed around here (on FR) as far as I can see. All I'm trying to do is explain how Cruz isn't doing anything less honorable than an athelete who barely makes a 3 point shot or a home run after reviewing the replay tape. It's in the rules and he's playing by the rules. He has every right to use every rule at his disposal in his favor.
what I dont get is why you would support a system that, however infrequent, would allow for your original vote to be voided...?
I could ask you the same question since probably before reading this article you never even knew this was a possibility. Thus you were perfectly happy believing that Trump had every "right" to gain the nomination in this nominating "system" by simply having a plurality (and not a majority) of the delegates. Why have you become so indignant now that you have discovered that the rules are that a candidate must have a majority and not simply a plurality of delegate votes? These are the same rules that have been in place for a while now.
It's not Cruz's fault he knows the rules better than you or Trump. And again, as I already showed my vote isn't being "subverted" because all Trump has to do is secure a majority of the delegates and he WILL be the nominee. No matter how many of his delegates are actually loyal to Cruz. Or else it will be as he predicted there will be a revolt from the GOP (and rightfully so).
That's really smart.
What Trump and many here have overlooked is that the independents and “operation chaos” Democrats who have crossed over to vote for Trump, are not represented in the delegates that go to convention.
Trump is trying to run his campaign on the cheap. This is the best example of that fact. Most of Trump's funding comes in the form of loans to his campaign, not in direct spending. Why? Is he expecting to pay himself back with the donations of others? If the guy is really worth $10 billion, he'd better start parting with some if it to build the infrastructure he'll need to win in November. Relying on the GOP isn't a strategy.
We come to the difference between the "party organization" (ie, the party Establishment), and the voters who are registered with that party, and what happens when their interests diverge.
It's like when you have a corporation which has a management team which is working for their own interests, rather than the interests of the stockholders. The only solution in that case is for the stockholders to allow a hostile takeover (hostile to the interests of the entrenched managers), so that the managers can be purged, and new management installed who will further the interests of the real owners of the organization.
So, you're right, what Trump is trying to do IS a hostile takeover. A takeover of the party establishment, to replace them with people who will actually respond to the desires of the voters.
The “artificial threshold” of a simple majority of delegates has been used by the Republican Party since its inception in 1854. The alternative has never been a plurality; the only alternative ever used by a major party was the Democrats two-thirds rule, which ended in 1936.
Cruz is a creature of Washington DC. He plays by the unwritten Washington rulebook.
Unfortunately his “stealing delegates” campaign is a symptom of the kind of corruption most of us normal people (outside washington DC) want to eliminate.
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