Posted on 04/22/2016 1:24:48 PM PDT by the_doc
I have heard that a lot of Republicans, ESPECIALLY Trump supporters, have said that the candidate who comes into the Cleveland convention with the most delegates should be (automatically?) awarded the nomination even if he cannot get 1237 votes on the first ballot.
I just want to go on record as saying that this widespread notion is politically stupid--even politically monstrous.
The Republican Party's rules since the very birth of the Party have specified that a prospective nominee must achieve a majority of Convention votes to become the nominee. As most FReepers already know, this longstanding fact is not disputed.
Abraham Lincoln, for example, was the 1860 Republican nominee even though it took three ballots for him to win the necessary majority in the voting. By that victory, Lincoln took the nomination away from New York's Senator William Seward--who had gone into the convention widely regarded as the presumptive nominee. Seward had led Lincoln 173 1/2 to 102 on the first ballot--and he still lost the nomination to Lincoln as the best candidate in 1860 for POTUS. (See Wikipedia for the interesting historical details of the struggle to find the Republicans’ best candidate for beating the Democrats in 1860.)
At the risk of laboring the point, I submit that the fellow who waltzed into the Convention as the presumptive nominee was not the best candidate. Lincoln was.
***
I realize, on the other hand, that Trump's supporters will likely call the Convention system horribly unfair--even anti-democratic--if Trump fails to win a majority of delegate votes on the first ballot and then goes on to lose the nomination that he and his supporters covet.
Well, I am sick and tired of the dishonest mantra of "Unfair! Cruz cheated! Cruz stole the election!"--and I intend to shame Trump's supporters in advance if they dare to spew out this sort of crap.
***
Dear FReeper FRiends: The Convention balloting process will essentially amount to a completely necessary RUN-OFF election if Trump fails to achieve the magic number of 1237 votes on the first ballot.
This is as it should be.
To illustrate that: Assume that a progressive Democrat and a conservative Republican and, say, a group of conservative Independents (splitting the conservative votes, of course) are running in a general election for Dog Catcher. Assume furthermore that the Dem gets 49% and the Republican gets 40% and the Independents get a total of 11%. In this scenario, a run-off would be needed. Awarding the much-coveted office of Dog Catcher to the Democrat would be a political travesty.
Well, the same travesty would exist if Trump were declared the nominee by some sort of acclamation without a meaningful political run-off. As it turns out the Convention is the only possible venue for the necessary run-off if Trump does not waltz into the Convention with a majority of delegates. Never mind that the run-off at the Convention would be a run-off using delegates to decide the run-off victor rather than a protocol of more direct democracy. The Convention is the only way to do the run-off.
(Besides, the idea of having only Convention delegates voting in the run-off [or run-offs, as necessary] actually follows our Constitutional Framers' pattern of electors choosing national-level winners, not the rabble of the hoi polloi.)
***
I assume that most FReepers are savvy enough to back away from the simplistic, anti-Republican (and downright, antinomian) position that getting close to a first ballot majority is good enough for immediately declaring Trump the nominee. I assume that FRumpsters would say, “Oh, we’re just saying that getting close to a majority amounts to a revelation of the will of the Party at the grass roots level. Therefore, non-Trump delegates should understand that they have a democratic responsibility to switch their votes to Trump on the second ballot.”
But that argument, too, is asinine. In the first place, one of the reasons why Trump will get at least close to a majority on the first ballot at the Convention is because he has tended to win open primaries. But as Rush has argued, Trump knowingly made hypocritical charges against George W. Bush for the 9-11 incident as a way of drawing Democrats over to him in South Carolina.
Democrats, all of whom are ideologically opposed to our Republic (whether they realize it or not), have helped Trump keep alive the prospect of a first-ballot win in the upcoming Convention--because many of Trump's big pick-ups of delegates have come from open primaries. This situation represents dangerous ideological ground for our Party. Citing Trump's open-primary victories and saying that these give us a lovely reason to make Trump our nominee is actually a RINO notion, a stupid notion (of pandering populism) that it is important to embrace Democrat ideology. This RINO thinking is practically the only reason why the Democratic Party is still nationally viable in American governance. The RINO approach to politics—which is often identified with the GOPe but which really boils down to cowardly pandering for good will with ideological fools—will ultimately prove to be deadly for our Republic if we don’t start electing real Constitutional Republicans.
(If a Progressive Democrat running for the terribly important office of Dog Catcher got only 49% of the popular vote, then a Conservative Republican must demand a head-to-head run-off—not just throw in the towel saying, Ah, the people have clearly spoken. True conservatives will fight and fight hard.
It goes without saying that we have never had a nationwide series of head-to-head, one-on-one elections (or even one-on-one public TV debates of policy) between Trump and his closest competitor, Senator Cruz. [Now that is one political fight that ought to be televised—which is why Trump ain’t going there.])
In the next place, if Trump gets 49% of the votes on the first convention ballot, he will have achieved a delegate-based near-majority with less than 40% of the popular sentiment expressed in the primaries—and that lower figure even includes quite a few Democrat numbskulls (who have perhaps nationalistic but still oddly un-American political ideology). My main point here is that Trump has benefited from State Republican Party rules that have given him a disproportionately high number of delegates (even as Trump has hypocritically leveled nasty and conspicuously false charges against the Party [and against Cruz in particular] for supposedly cheating, for wickedly disenfranchising the voters!).
In the next place, a huge percentage of the delegates for Trump will have come from the Northeast, especially Trump’s home state of New York. Boasting that Trump’s victory over the Constitutional conservative Ted Cruz is practically a sign from heaven that Trump must be proclaimed the nominee just for getting close on the first Convention ballot is, under the circumstances, asinine.
(By the way, one of the main reasons why Cruz’s numbers were so low is because many of the genuinely conservative Republicans who still reside in New York have actually left the New York Republican Party and formed the Conservative Party. This Party includes 150,000 genuinely principled conservatives who could not vote in the closed “Republican” primary.)
The Northeast does have a lot electoral votes for the general election, but the majority of voters in the U.S. do not have what I would “Northeast values.” This is important in the overall political calculus! We must not be unduly impressed if Trump takes a lot of delegates to the Convention from the Northeast. Most Northeastern states are practically write-offs for any Republican candidate in November.
What is even more ominous, while Trump is boasting that he would win his home state of New York in the general election, the voter turnout in the Democrats’ recent New York primary strongly argues otherwise. The smart money says that Hillary would crush Trump in New York—which happens to be her home state, too, at this time—during the general election. So, New York would not be on the proverbial “electoral path to victory” for Trump any more than it would be on such a path for Cruz.
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In the final analysis, we need to remember that Trump appears to have a popularity ceiling of less than 40% among Republican voters. Many Republicans who regard Trump as a RINO—this time, a thoroughly crass RINO--will hold their noses and vote for him if he is the nominee; however, I can assure my FRumpster Friends that many, many Republicans will NEVER vote for Trump—NO MATTER WHAT.
The NeverTrump crowd will include many of the GOPe elitists and their devotees (who have given indications, according to Rush, that they would prefer Hillary over Trump.) Probably a more ominous percentage of the NeverTrump crowd are those genuine Christians—arguably the very base of the Party—who regard Trump as, not merely a necessarily imperfect sinner, but the most brazenly phony Christian ever to run for the White House as a Republican.
I believe that a contested Convention in Cleveland would force some very serious soul-searching on the part of Trump delegates. I think many of them will conclude that Trump’s profane arrogance could very well cost us our Republic. If they think Cruz has a better chance of beating Hillary, they will need to do what they are supposed to do in the Republican Convention.
At the bottom line, FRumpster Friends, that is the proper way to see a contested Convention as a politically necessary run-off. If Trump cannot reach a majority on the first ballot, he is not clearly a great candidate—even you personally think Trump is a wonderful, noble patriot and the only hope for our Republic. So, please don’t be so dishonorable, so un-American, as to call it cheating if the Party follows its own well-documented rules and winds up eliminating your guy on the final ballot.
well, bye.
“Trump is (almost) universally despised.”
Keep it up and you will be in that territory yourself.
Have we not all learned that this is a terrible year for broad pronouncements?...conventional wisdom isn’t applicable to this election by any means...
For months we’ve heard time and again such and such have everything worked out...then it isn’t.
As said...Trump a joke. No, wait, he’s inevitable.... He’s out of control.... No, now he’s more disciplined, He’s got this.... No, he’s a loose cannon.
Then ...Cruz has no chance to be the nominee. No, wait, now he has the inside track..... His campaign operation has too many flaws.... No, now they are the smart ones with the best delegate roundup skills.
and as much....It’s the Year of the Governor. Nope, all the Governors are gone..... Wait, there’s one. It’s John Kasich.... He’s a terrible choice. No, wait, he’s great because he matches up well against Hillary. But he can’t win anything outside his own state and Manhattan.
For the first time we don’t have a nominee elected by Spring...yet we hear everybody proclaiming what they can forsee down the road.....Meanwhile the rehtoric of supporters on both sides scream out....“Trump can’t win” and “Cruz can’t win.” ..and on and on it goes. Which is nothing more than ‘campaign piffle’.
How’s all that working for you???? And you want anybody to say how Cruz can or not beat Hillary??? LOLOLOLOL
“The truth of the matter....there is a plausible path forward for either man to be sworn in as the 45th President of the United States.”
see post 63...:)
Thanks for removing the trash!
There have been 7 contested conventions and 6 of them produced the nominee. Lincoln was just one of them. Not a bad outcome when the “mob” insisted on mob rule.
>He’s been aligned with the dems for years. He did not HAVE to donate to Hillary to do business. He wanted to. He likes her.
First he calls Bill Clinton a rapist and now he’s calling Hillery: Crooked Clinton. He’s taking the fight to the the dems on a scale not seen in ages and your argument is a lie.
A runoff election minus the voters...a Ted Cruz/GOPe wet dream!
Cruz is toast. Trump will be well over 1237 on the first ballot.
Honestly, no matter what thread you post in, your zealotry for Cruz is comical.
You have no basis in reality for your beliefs, yet you attempt to pass them off as factual.
I was for Cruz at the beginning. Along the way, it became obvious that although he has a good “conservative” record, he would never be able to win the general election. The votes already cast have made this painfully clear.
His antics have not helped his cause. The desperate support of his base refuses to see what is plainly visible to the rest of the electorate.
Mr. Trump has garnered more support than any other candidate and the reasons for that are very simple. This has been noted previously. In fact, Mr. Robinson has posted his positives in a very well constructed manner, so I will not bother to go into those details yet again as I have no doubt you have already seen them.
Mr. Trump is the only candidate that can win in the general election against Clinton. That is a fact, and it is backed up by the actual votes that have been registered during the primary process.
Mr. Trump may not be the most conservative, but he is the most conservative candidate who actually has a chance to win the general election.
No matter how much you despise him, the truth is there. You can disagree with it all you please, but it will not change reality.
Please show me the voter counts from the State Primaries held for Lincoln. I’ll give you a hint there are none.
Very good! Clearly explains the situation. Thanks
If someone other than Trump is SELected, my political year will end right there. I will tune it out and November 8th will just be another Tuesday.
If a Republican Presidential Primary Election were to take place in Colorado, 44% of likely voters would vote for Donald Trump, 34% support Ted Cruz, 17% support John Kasich and 5% are undecided. When asked to choose between only Ted Cruz or Donald Trump, 48% support Trump and 42% support Cruz, and 10% are undecided. These results are interesting in light of the results at the Republican State Convention where Ted Cruz won all 34 delegates awarded. What the results show is a potential disconnect between the more dedicated group of delegates who participated in the state convention and the far broader group of 350,000 to 400,000 Republicans who would typically vote in a primary election.
All good points. The Trumpsters are sounding just like the Cruzites were when Cruz won Wisconsin. Now might be the best time for both sides to announce that they will support the candidate that wins a majority (not a plurality) and show Unity! No one wins when they are divided, and Hillary will definitely win if people continue to be fanatical about their own candidates and throw Unity to the wind.
The person with the most delegates should get it.
Just my .02
We have seen this before, its the the denial stage of grief.
Bye Bye. You were very deserving of the lightening.
Well I hope you feel better now. But Ted Cruz is done. You know how when you chop the head off a chicken but it still runs around for a minute or so? That’s Teddy. Trump is the presumptive nominee at this point. There will be no contested convention.
Your claim that Cruz is the establishment guy is just silly propaganda lies. Conservatives have worked for years to force the establishment to a showdown where they have no choice but to follow our lead.
We finally get that with a principled conservative with an actual conservative track record and half our base wants to toss that away to flirt with a populist with no conservative track record rather an entrenched history of being exactly the crony establishment insider we’ve been fighting against.
The irony is unreal.
Sorry, there is only the most miniscule of chances for Cruz. His only hope is forcing a contested convention AND making sure Rule 40b stays in place. The problem is, he is working with the GOPe to gain delegates - and those delegates will have no loyalty to Cruz on crucial rule votes. If the convention is contested, Rule 40b will likely be scrapped and Cruz will be tossed aside like a used diaper ... and for the exact same reason.
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