Why Didn't the Trump Campaign Say Something About Colorado Sooner?

RUSH: Yeah, I was just asking a question here of the staff. I'm gonna ask you, and if anybody wants to call and give me your answer to this, have at it. We all know that the Trump campaign is continuing to actively -- I don't want to use the word "complain," but they're being very critical of the Colorado process, okay? So my question is this. The Colorado process has been known for months and months and months. I'm serious here. Not trying to make a point with it. I'm actually asking a question.

Why not complain about this two months ago? Why not call attention to it last month, two weeks ago, two months ago? Why wait until after the results to start complaining about how it was rigged? It's not as though something happened in Colorado that nobody knew was gonna happen. It's not as though they changed the rules in the middle of the process during the weekend. So why complain, why call attention to it now? Why not do so a month ago? Why not back in September or October or whenever the Trump campaign found out how Colorado was gonna manage its affairs here during the primary?

Greetings, my friends. Welcome to the EIB Network. Rush Limbaugh back at it here for another three hours. The telephone number is 800-282-2882, and the e-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com.

I guess one of the biggest bits of news that's out there now is that apparently a member of the Republican National Committee, a guy by the name of Randy Evans, was on MSNBC this morning. We have a ban on anything that happens there. And I'm not gonna lift the ban. I don't need the ban lifted. This guy said on MSNBC this morning, "If Donald Trump exceeds 1,100 delegates, then he's gonna get the nomination." If Donald Trump exceeds 1,100 delegates, he will become the nominee, even though he may not have 1,237.

Well, this has caused a lot of buzz. People are asking, "Wait a minute. What does this mean?" There are any number of possibilities. Does this mean, is this guy speaking for the whole committee? And has the committee internally decided that if Trump gets that close, 1,100, they're just gonna scrap the 1,237 rule and hand it to Trump? Or does he mean, hey, if he gets to 1,100 there's no stopping him no matter what anybody tries to do. Does he mean that? Or does he mean something else? And everybody is digging deep trying to find out exactly what Randy Evans meant.

And apparently somebody named Caitlin Huey-Burns, Real Clear Politics tweeted out: Just got off the phone with Randy Evans, the Republican National Committee, and he said the 1,237 number is not flexible, only that if Trump is close that he can wrangle enough unbound delegates.

So I hate to be the bearer of what some might consider bad news, but this does not constitute an official change of the rules from the RNC and the convention. It just happened this one committee member goes on TV today and says, "Hey, if Trump gets to 1,100, it'll be a snap to get to 1,237. All he's gotta do is go and get 137 unbound, 117 unbound delegates, whatever it is, and he's got it in the bag." So the guy was not saying that the RNC is going to modify the 1,237 rule and count 1,100 close enough to say it's a done deal. He's simply saying if he gets that close, it's gonna be easy for the Trumpster to go out there and make up the difference.

Washington Post has a story today saying that the Cruz campaign is working diligently to make sure that Trump does not get to 1,237 on the second ballot, much less the first. So it remains unsettled. We have polling data coming in from New York where Trump continues to poll way, way, way out in front of anybody else.

RUSH: And we start on the phones today in Colorado Springs, Colorado. This is Grace. I'm glad you called. What's on your mind?

CALLER: Well, I have a lot of questions for you. We've been listening to you since 1997. My husband corrected me, '91. We're Colorado voters and we don't agree to the point, yeah, okay, they made the rules, this Republican deal thing here. In fact, we know that Cruz was here, and what I'm trying to say is, we just don't find that it's right for them to do that and disenfranchise the voters. And secondly, to us, because we've been Republican voters for years. And what we're saying is that the more that they try to destroy Trump, the same people are driving people to him. We were Cruz, now we're Trump.

RUSH: Well, see, in a way, these things balance themselves out. I know it appears unfair, it looks like it's disenfranchises voters. I don't think this is the first time Colorado's done it this way. But it does, it does disenfranchise. Voters don't play a role in this. That was the rule going in. The delegates are selected at caucuses, and they apply to be delegates, and they go out and they get 10 seconds to campaign 'cause there's so many of them that they only get 10 seconds to get put on a slate. But, look, it's backfiring in a lot of ways, and it's actually redounding in certain places to Trump's benefit here.

CALLER: We just find it so wrong what they're doing. And now we've been -- I even posted on Facebook, another voter here in Colorado that has done what the Republican Party, they're leaving the Republican Party left and right and going to Trump. And --

RUSH: Okay, so you were all-in for Cruz until this happened, and you got so mad because Trump got screwed that you're joining the Trump --

CALLER: We just felt like, okay, you know, just because a man says he's a Christian or just because he holds up a Bible doesn't make him one, and we're not believing everything that we are listening to --

CALLER: -- because there's so much -- first of all, when you listen to the news, I mean, all you hear is nothing but garbage and trash and just trying to destroy each other. And the one thing that --

RUSH: Wait, wait a minute, wait -- hold it. Garbage, who's talking garbage about who? Who are you referring to? The media or other candidates?

RUSH: Well, look what you just did. You just savaged Cruz (imitating caller), "just 'cause you hold a Bible up and say you're a Christian doesn't mean you're one." I mean, you're qualified to be on cable news.

CALLER: (laughing) Well, the thing is we even used to be Fox News listeners, and we don't even do that anymore. We're just so tired of all of this mess.

RUSH: I know. Look, I hear this. You do not know how much I hear it. I know exactly where you're coming from. I wish I had more time, but I don't.

RUSH: Here's Sylvana as we head back to the phones, San Diego. Great to have you on the program. Hello.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. I'm just going to kind of answer the question that you asked, and you said, well, why is Donald Trump acting the way he is now after Colorado.

RUSH: No, no, no. Let me rephrase the question 'cause I'm glad you're answering it. I opened the program today 'cause people are still fit to be tied over what happened in Colorado from the disenfranchisement standpoint. People there weren't allowed to vote, Colorado GOP aced them out. But it's been known that was gonna happen, whether you liked it or not, since last August. So why didn't the Trump campaign complain about this a month ago, two months ago, last fall? Why did they wait 'til after the whole thing, and then complain about it?

Why not complain about it before it happens? Why not put pressure on before this thing goes down the way it went down and try to influence the outcome. Or maybe what you can do, if you go out in front of this thing, is you can in effect have the result disqualified if you have a good PR effort? Why not do this beforehand instead of wait 'til the process is over?

CALLER: I don't know, then I'm in trouble. Because I was gonna say what he's doing right now is he's lashing out, because in my opinion Colorado and what happened in Colorado exposed him for what he is, the paper tiger. And what does that mean? Well, what you have is not what he claims to be. Number one, rules do not apply to him. And you keep saying that, well, he plays by his own set of rules.

CALLER: Okay. Well, you say that he plays by his own rules and the rules that he sets. Is that correct?

RUSH: You know, I think that you are interpreting what I say in your own way. I have attempted to say that Trump as an outsider is not going to play the game according to the way it's always been played, that he's gonna remain outside. And if you interpret that as he's gonna make up his own rules, fine. I don't want to quibble with you about that.

CALLER: Okay. Well, my issue is this, just like you said, the rules were known in advance. He decided to play by his own rules and his own rule book. And for people who say that that's okay, well, the reason I'm revolting against the Washington elite class is that they are playing by their own set of rules. They're not the same set of rules for me. So Ted Cruz was playing by the rules. Donald Trump chose not to. That was his decision. Another point that I was gonna make, Colorado also showed that he does not have a ground game. Well, a ground game is another --

RUSH: Okay. Sylvana from San Diego. It's interesting. She interpreted me and my comments about Trump in the past as saying he's breaking the rules, playing by his own set of rules. That's not what I ever said. I have never said that Donald Trump is breaking rules, and I've really not said he's not following rules. All I have said about Trump -- and I know people are gonna interpret this in their own words. You tell somebody a story, a short story, and they tell three more people. By the time it gets back to you, it's nothing like your version. So I understand that.

My point was and has been about Trump all along, he was unorthodox. He wasn't going to run a standard campaign according to the set procedures that the experts say you have to do it. He wasn't going to play the insiders game. He was gonna run his own campaign being who he is. And, by the way, part and parcel of that is not having a ground game. I think that Trump's theory, his philosophy, I think what he intended was to just run away with this and just smother the entire process and not need these ground games anywhere. I mean, you need Colorado; you need California; there are a couple other states where you've got to have a delegate selection apparatus, something in addition to winning the popular vote.

I think Trump just figured he was gonna skunk everybody winning the popular vote. And it was based on the fact that it was happening at the time. I've heard it referred to as the King Kong approach. Trump was just gonna climb the Empire State Building and start swinging from the TV antenna up there and claim everything was his. It was unorthodox. I might have even said he wasn't playing by the rules, but I didn't mean an official rule book. I mean conventional wisdom, standard, ordinary operating procedure, "This is how we do it."

And Trump, "No, I'm not gonna do it that way. I am gonna say controversial things. I am gonna violate political correctness. I am not gonna worry about it. I'm gonna say what I think. If anybody criticizes me, I'm hitting 'em back twice as hard." You know, all of the don'ts that the professionals tell you, he's doing them. And that's all I mean. I don't mean he's got a rule book that he's purposely violating. Don't anybody out there assume that I have ever said that Trump's cheating. I know, frankly, that that's what many of you think is happening to him, that he is being cheated by this odd set of rules, for example, in Colorado.

But I really think that Trump thought that he would go to Cleveland with enough delegates by now. I think Trump probably thought he would have this nomination wrapped up by now. I would be very surprised if anybody in the Trump campaign, including myself, thought this was gonna go all the way to June. You go back, I mean, he was winning everything, and he was winning by 30 points, 20 points, had this massive lead in every upcoming poll. And then Wisconsin came along. There were some little states that Trump lost. Cruz won his home state of Texas, but he even won Rubio's home state of Florida. It's Wisconsin where the applecart here's been upset. It was not even Iowa. He didn't go to the debate and lost that, Cruz won that. That could have sidelined the campaign, but it didn't.

So I think the reason that Trump didn't do a set of procedures in Colorado, he didn't think he was going to need to. I don't believe that he didn't know. The candidates all are told about these state-by-state procedures. I just think he didn't think it was gonna be necessary. He was gonna go in there, and even if he doesn't win Colorado, fine, can't win everything, but I'm gonna win this thing hands down going away. I think that was what he thought.

So all this other stuff wasn't necessary. It's one of the aspects of the campaign that everybody does and Trump, "Not me, I don't have to do that. I don't have to do that. I'm Donald Trump. I can win without doing that, and I'm gonna show you."

But since it's happened, and since it appears to have been very disenfranchising, well, there's a score to be made here by claiming you've been cheated. I mean, it keeps your base tightly, steadfastly attached to you.

RUSH: George in Rochester, New York. Thank you for waiting, sir. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hi.

CALLER: I just wanted to say that what happened in Colorado, you know, clearly 98% of the people not only in the state, but in the country had no idea how that worked and what was gonna happen. And I really just feel like the mask of the beast has been pulled off the American political system. I'm 48 years old. I've always believed that it was possible that the system was rigged, but I always knew in my heart that the voting would right any kind of wrong. But it's totally unacceptable as an American, and I happen to be a Democrat, stepping over the voters is totally unacceptable, and I just wanted to reach out to my brothers and sisters in Colorado and tell 'em that I am an American first, and what happened is totally disgusting. That's pretty much what I wanted to say.

RUSH: So you are in solidarity with the people in Colorado who were disenfranchised and had the right to vote taken away from them?

CALLER: I'm an American first, and that's all there is to it. You know, I've never voted Republican, but I'm an American first.

CALLER: And it totally disgusts me, and there's gotta be a lot of people out there that feel just like I do.

RUSH: Okay, George, I appreciate the call, and I'm sure the people of Colorado do, too.

Is this available in book form?

I checked the official gop site; https://www.gop.com/official-2016-gop-delegate-count/

Trump has 755 and needs 482
Cruz has 521 and needs 716

There are 798 remaining

Trump needs 60.4% of the remaining delegates.
Cruz needs 89.7% of the remaining delegates.

By dynoman

It's a good question. Why not complain about the process months ago to draw attention to it?

Just because some folks may not like the fact that the question was asked doesn't mean it isn't a valid question.

The CO delegates were originally slated to all go for Jeb Bush. There wasn’t chance in the world that they were going anywhere else.

No one planned for Jeb to be sidelined, but Trump did it anyway.

So Jeb dropped out.

Since he has suspended his campaign, they needed an insider to be a place holder for the delegates and that turns out to be Cruz, who will control those delegates until the Convention, then, after a few slight of hand tricks, they are slated to go back to Jeb, or maybe Mitt.

That’s a little off. The reason is that many of the “won” delegates that don’t show as “remaining” have gone back into the hopper-—think Carson, Christie-—and on top of those, there were something like 20 un-pledged delegates from the Virgin Islands, for a total of about 30 more delegates “out there.” In addition, ND had a weird system that doesn’t even get counted, but depending on who you follow, Trump got six from that group, Cruz a bunch more.

In other words, it’s entirely possible that either Trump or Cruz has wrapped up many of these unpledged delegates already bolstering either or both of their numbers. I personally think Trump is closer to 770, Cruz about 540. It changes the math a little.

Trump is not stupid and neither are the people around him, I have a feeling they knew the Colorado rules perfectly, they probably also realized that Cruz had a better organization and they stood little chance of winning delegates in Colorado under the bizarre rules. So essentially they lost the delegate war by conceding the state to Cruz, then turned around and shined the spotlight on Colorado process and managed to make lemonade out of lemons by turning that loss into a major PR victory and a campaign line “the game is rigged” that they will use through the convention to rally their voters.

Trump needs 60.4% of the remaining delegates.

If Trump gets 50% of the remaining delegates and 25% of the "other" delegates (make the rules so that Rubio delegates who became unbound when Rubio dropped out stay unbound), that's about all he needs. If he can't get those totals, there is something wrong.

I think it’s a valid question, and I think the answer was that Trump thought by this time he would have such momentum that each domino would fall in line. Sometime between Iowa and Kansas, I think his team forgot about Colorado.

Then, a month ago, when it dawned on them that they would have no shot there (probably because of states like Kansas and Idaho), they decided not to waste resources on it and to put their time and money into the bigger delegate states that were more of a sure thing, like NJ, NY, RI, CT, PA, MD, DE.

I think it was strategy-—but then I think once they saw the outcry after what happened, they milked it and saw that it was creating a backlash against Cruz.

I know what you mean. I do listen to the first 20 minutes to see if he has some news I haven’t heard. But his shilling for Cruz finally collapsed into some incredible flip-flops: the CO GOP was right, they posted the rules, but the rules were anti-Ted, but somehow Ted was so smart he figured out how to use the rules, so that’s what you have to do, so (and I’m pretty close to a direct quote here) he said, “become an insider to fight them.”

HUH???

I teach during the second hour, but then by hour 3, he has so many ads that he reads, there is really about 20 minutes of real programming in the entire hour.

.
The local carriers of the program are obviously funneling lots of shill callers, to try to put Rush on the hot seat.

Its something that happens often these days.

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