Dopey Reporting Is the Real Colorado GOP Delegate Story

PJ Media ^ | April 22, 2016 | Charlie Martin

[tinamina]

When the author said “dopey followers” I quit reading

[BfloGuy]

And furthermore, calling us zombies is not going to motivate us to go out and vote for Cruz if he did win on the 2nd ballot.

Heh. What makes you think this was aimed at you?

[bigbob]

I don’t care if they’ve been doing it this way for a thousand years, it’s still a crap process.

They can defend it all they like, in fact I hope they double-down on defending it because it just proves Trump’s point that the system is rigged and run by insiders (like the insider who wrote this).

The Colorado Steal pretty much assured Trump the nomination and showed Lyin’ Ted to be the insider politician that he is.

[gogeo]

BS, steaming pile of it.

How likely is it that the process as described will reflect the will of the voters? (In this case, Republican)

The answer, as illustrated by the Colorado results: not at all. The power of insiders to exert their will on the end result by definition comes at the expense of the voter.

[McGruff]

Give me a f%^&*ing break.

[gogeo]

The “system is rigged meme” has the advantage of being demonstrably true.

[rustbucket]

Those delegates were not earned by winning the vote of the people, but by selection by party insiders and activists. Anyone not blinded to supporting Ted Cruz with the “by any means necessary” mindset can see the difference in how those delegates were obtained and we don’t like it.

As the article said (my bold below), "Colorado's process is hardly "voteless." We've got votes coming out of our ears. Tens of thousands of people voted -- I've seen 65,000 reported, I've seen 70,000. No, they're not "party insiders." I mean, 70,000 "party insiders" in one state? Come on."

Have you ever been selected as a delegate to a state Republican convention? I have, and I'm no party activist or official. We elected a college student to be our district's delegate to the Republican National Convention. He wasn't any kind of party official or insider. There is a lot of voting at the local, county, and state meetings/caucuses/conventions and lots of discussions and voting on platform and party issues.

If you really want to make a difference in your party, go to those meetings. Better yet, organize a group that thinks the same way you do, and go make your voices heard. Or you can sit home, and, having chosen not to make the effort, you can grouse and complain about the results and how unfair and rigged they were.

[Nacho Bidnith]

You can rationalize all you want, but this is the result that the people of Colorado gave when asked whom they preferred.

TRUMP CARD: Magellan Poll Finds That Trump Would Trump Cruz in a Primary
Colorado Peak Politics -Conservative Bully Pulpit ^ | April 21, 2016 | Colorado Peak Politics
Posted on 4/22/2016, 6:49:24 AM by Beautiful_Gracious_Skies

There has been a lot of agitation from the Trump Camp about the caucus process in Colorado – and, maybe, now we know why. A Magellan poll released today shows that in a head to head match up, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump would beat his opponent Ted Cruz in Colorado.

Here are the numbers when voting on the current ballot:

44% – Trump

34% – Cruz

17% – Kasich

5% – undecided

If voters were asked to choose between Cruz and Trump, the result is little changed:

48% – Trump

42% – Cruz According to the poll, Trump’s top spot is due to his strong stance on immigration and national security. From the poll summary:

“Simply put, support for Donald Trump is being driven by his dominance among the 22% of voters that believe stopping illegal immigration is the the top issue.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3423563/posts

Yeah, yeah, rules is rules, but getting those delegates the way he did crushed Cruz in the opinion polls and he won’t recover from that.

[Fresh Wind]

Well, here's the process: there is a caucus, in which any registered Republican may participate, to vote on delegates or to run as a delegate. These delegates go to the county and district caucuses, where some of them are selected by vote to go on as state delegates at the Colorado state convention, where delegates to the national convention are selected. By vote.

I see three "votes" in that process and the fourth would be what they do at the national convention. Only one of those four votes directly reflects the will of the people.

[rustbucket]

Let's look at how accurately Magellan polling did in Louisiana 3 days before the 2016 primary there

Magellan LA 3/1/2016:

Trump 41
Cruz 21

Actual Louisiana primary votes 3/4/2016:

Trump 41
Cruz 38

Here's how Magellan polling did in Mississippi on 2/29/2016:

Trump 41
Cruz 17

Actual Mississippi primary votes 3/8/2016:

Trump 47
Cruz 36

So, on those two primaries Magellan underestimated Trump on average by 7% and Cruz by 95% . Somehow they are not doing very well in determining Cruz's support.

[Nacho Bidnith]

Inaccurate as their polling may be, it doesn’t equate to 34-0.

[rustbucket]

Inaccurate as their polling may be, it doesn’t equate to 34-0.

Nor do rules that gave Trump all 99 delegates in Florida although the majority of primary voters voted against him.

As you said, rules are rules, right?

Whose fault is it that Trump didn't get his people to the Colorado meetings where thousands of people were involved in the process of selecting delegates to the national convention? Apparently, it is the same process that Colorado has been using since 1912.

In 2012, Santorum won the Colorado straw poll, but suspended his campaign right before the Colorado State Convention. Second place finisher Romney then ended up most of the Colorado delegates at the national conventions although apparently 8 Colorado delegates (Santorum and Paul delegates) did not vote at the national convention (their guys might not have been nominated on the floor).

[exDemMom]

People can understand winner-take-all primaries. Whoever gets the most votes wins it all. People can understand proportional delegates based on how the candidates ended up when the votes were counted. People CAN'T understand how Colorado became winner take all without any record of who the voters of the state preferred. And they don't need to understand it to know it stinks.

Exactly!

Only a crooked lawyer could love the convoluted way the delegates somehow all ended up being bound to Cruz in CO.

[exDemMom]

Only one of those four votes directly reflects the will of the people.

And even that vote does not reflect the will of the people, since they did not know which candidate any of the delegates would support.

Furthermore, according to the rules the CO GOP set up in August, the delegates were supposed to remain unbound until the national convention, so that they would be free to vote their choice then.

In any case, what happened in CO stank. The GOP in CO realizes that--I saw an article where CO is now talking about going to a primary process from now on.