Posted on 04/18/2016 8:36:31 AM PDT by reaganaut1
Donald Trump is complaining that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) is racking up voterless victories in states such as Colorado and Wyoming, where delegates are chosen by a small handful of elites who are sidelining Republican voters.
This is dead wrong. In both Colorado and Wyoming, all registered Republican voters in the state had the chance to vote and participate in the delegate selection process.
The Wyoming Republican Party website explains the process clearly: Delegates to the state convention are elected by the county conventions. Delegates to the county convention are elected by precinct caucuses in their respective counties. Any person registered to vote Republican as of the call for precinct caucuses in a given precinct may vote in that precincts caucus (emphasis added).
In other words, there is a whole lot of voting going on. All Republicans in Wyoming had the chance to go to their precinct and vote for delegates who support their preferred candidate. And they did so in record numbers. In Laramie County, for example, the lines ran out the door on Super Tuesday, and turnout was up almost 400 percent compared with 2012. The lines outside, they are amazing, said Glen Chavez, a first-time caucus-goer. If youve never taken part in something like this, get involved. If you want to make the difference, you make the change.
The same was true for Colorado. Under Article XII of the Colorado Republican Partys bylaws, any person who is a resident of a precinct for 30 days and is a registered voter affiliated with the Republican Party for at least two months can vote in a precinct caucus. Any such person can also run for delegate.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
They certainly won’t vote for a presidential candidate who associates with a person who passionately preaches such an abhorrent idea.
Yep just keep spreading the BS, Cruz has clearly stated he’s never met the man and clearly disavowed the mans comments upon hearing them, but i can see where you would have difficulty recognizing the truth when you have an agenda to promote. The truth is simple to recognize if you just let yourself!
I was at a Cruz rally. While at the rally, we had to sign a piece of paper. We had to pinkie promise on how Ted was going to steal the election. You should have seen him on stage. He was just laughing the whole time.
First we will start in Colorado. I think we can get them to change their laws. His Campaign Manager said yes that it was possible.
Then we can move to Wyoming and have them change the rules and we can pick up another 14 delegates. That will have him running to the hills.
Do you think we can change thee rules in New York? asked Ted. His campaign manager shook his head and said, No I think they are set in stone.
OK. Forget New York. Who’s next?
Rhode Island sir. Can we get them to change their laws?
No sir. I doubt it.
Well never mind Rhode Island You know what I think of Rhode Island?
Whats that Senator?
I don’t want to waste millions of dollars going out to Rhode Island many months before to wine and dine and to essentially pay off all these people because a lot of it’s a pay-off,” Cruz said.
That sort of sounds like what Trump might say.
You’re right it does sound like him doesn’t it? We still have a good plan.
We will just steal the rest of the delegates.
How will we do that sir?
I’m not sure yet. I know.
What sir
We will keep our campaign offices open and show the states we aren’t just there for the election!
Sir, you don’t mean...
That’s right. Show them we care what happens to them.
But sir, that will take effort. Almost like a grass...
Grass roots campaign. I know it might take some work but the end will justify the means!
I don’t know all that hard work
Well I guess we could offer helicopter rides...
Then he looked out into the crowd and said “Remember you all ‘pinkie promised’ And we all nodded in agreement”
Sir
Yes?
We can blame our victories on Bush and the established GOP party
Great idea, he said
The rules weren't "changed" to "abolition" a primary election. There was no "primary" election in place. There was a non binding election in place. The establishment RNC created a national party rule that said that all non binding elections should be abolished. It was the establishment that wanted the change. It was the local conservatives who didn't want an Open Primary, who didn't want the change.
The four conservatives on the local Colorado Senate Appropriations committee balked at the idea of a binding primary because the bill required that the primary be an Open Primary.
It was the conservatives in Colorado who stood up to the RNC and to the local Colorado Democrats and RINOs. And this all happened in April and May of 2015 before Trump had announced. The August 2015 vote by the CO GOP was just an affirmation of the national RNC rules that they were required to uphold, because of what they decided back in April and May of 2015.
Nor should they. The Wyoming precinct caucus turnout was huge.
“Any person registered to vote Republican as of the call for precinct caucuses in a given precinct may vote in that precincts caucus”
However, it is not the case that any person registered to vote Republican as of the call for precinct caucuses in a given precinct is able to determine the time and location of a precincts caucus.
That is often a closely guarded secret.
The process is republican in form.
But but, no fair. That sounds too complicated for Joe Q. Trumper.
Go to your polling place and put an X by the candidate you support. Now, go home.
No. The process was decided in April and May of 2015 before Trump had announced.
This is what my son and I have been discussing. The only reason Cruz has better “favorables” than Trump is because the media is on a Trump 24x7 coverage frenzy. If, and on the remote chance this becomes reality, Cruz were to win the nomination, the media will turn on him.
Those horrible favorables will plummet.
Once again an attack on Trump is grounded in a lie.
Unlike Tennis, the caucus system is designed and operated to concentrate power in the hands of a few elitists who consider themselves obligated in no way by the will of the people.
Times and places of meetings are closely held to prevent interference by the voters.
Perhaps an honest caucus system would work well, but what we have—at least in Colorado—is a dishonest system, designed by and for the benefit of dishonest people.
Can’t you Trump-haters find something true to bash him about?
BTW, I once had a conversation with a pro tennis player. He said that McEnroe was right. Those were bad calls.
1. No citation, no source, no authority cited, nothing but a naked assertion.
2. Use of the weasel word "often."
That is just as well because there is nothing wrong with conducting the nominating process for a political party by way of the caucus system.
The idea that there is some sort of plot conceived by Trump supporters in May to be executed in April is preposterous unless they had second sight. Trump had ample opportunity, indeed equal opportunity, to participate in the caucus system as he would've had in a primary system. Trump opted out, end of story.
“1. No citation, no source, no authority cited, nothing but a naked assertion.”
I tried to find out where my precinct caucus was, and I have talked to others who did the same. I was reluctant to rest my argument on that because I anticipated that the response would be unpleasant. Still do.
“2. Use of the weasel word “often.”
You wanted me to say “always?” I have heard and read about a number of cases, in addition to my own, but I doubt that it is always true.
Are you seriously maintaining that there was neither hanky nor panky in the Colorado process, that the system is not designed to ace the voter out and put the decision in the hands of a few elitists?
This article does not say who selects the people the delegates at state convention are permitted to send forward to the national convention. It just says that precincts elect delegates to the state convention.
In fact, it doesn’t say who selects the people voted on at precinct conventions.
I believe any grass roots person at the precinct level can run as a delegate. There are hundreds that do it.
If you were voting for best police officer of the year in your county, and the police gave you 3 names to choose from would that result in the best police officer of the year being elected?
You bring up a decent point.
<< “The candidate has to organize people who know what they’re doing.” >>
Americans are going to be asking why that is true, if it is even true, and should it be true today.
Delegates. What the heck use do they serve today, since we are hardly in a former age of Pony Express, without planes, trains and automobiles.
Civics classes use to be mandatory in the 7th grade. I can not remember the last time I ever heard the words “civic class” in our schools.
There is a reason why typical American voters are ignorant. It is entirely possible that a citizen candidate, an outsider, running for a party nomination today, would not even know of the insider manipulations of outcomes. He possibly would not know those manipulations are not only possible, but probable.
You win decisively, you earned lots of delegates and the popular vote is thrilling. A boob citizen candidate thinks that’s fair, that he won nicely and also has lots of delegates in most every state, like possibly even 2 to 1.
Then he finds out his polling in upcoming states is very favorable, in stratospheric numbers among the people, and certainly compared to his opponents who are losing to him, among the people.
Then he finds out that his delegates are broadly handed to his opponent, that the people’s vote only served to determine the allocation of those number of delegates.
The boob citizen candidate thought it was suppose to be one man, one vote, a democratic vote. So did the people.
Then he finds out the insiders do some gate keeping. The gate keeping is separate from the stated RULES. It’s often called the “process”.
The gate keeping is preventative. Measures can be freely taken that are not in the Rule Book and ably prevent the people’s choice candidate from ascending.
When the people are exposed to the actual road rules, which are quite different from the party rules, they begin to stir. They don’t like indirect democracy. They like direct democracy, by their own hand, by their own choice, and no surrogates reshaping their choice just because they wear a hat that says they are a “delegate”.
Wars are fought over subverting the will of the people. Always have been, and will be again.
Democracy matters in America. Being on the wrong side of democracy is a very bad place to be, since democracy is the underpinning of our REPUBLIC.
Democracy guards our REPUBLIC, and America is inclined to suit up and raise Hell to protect it.
Probably the RNC, if not also Cartel Cruz, should wake up and smell the coffee.
Do they have run offs and require a winner above 50% or do they go with the high vote getter after one round of voting?
I don’t know. My guess would be that they pick the delegates with the highest vote totals without a run off.
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