By Mark Rhoads -
Yesterday a presidential candidate from New York tweeted his outrage that a candidate from Texas was able to win all the GOP delegates from Colorado by visiting and working hard in that state.
The New York candidate complained that Colorado had changed their rules for choosing delegates.
DUH.
They changed them in public eights months ago – in August 2015 — and the New Yorker only just woke up to the new rules? This is the same New Yorker who bragged he could learn all he needed to know about nuclear missiles in 90 minutes but he cannot keep up on the rules of each state party that affect his campaign directly?
LOL, really Mark? What is the matter are party insiders getting nervous now that the genie is out of the bottle and starting to get scrutiny from the party base? I am a former precinct committeeman, former in the sense once I got inside the party and spent some time(about 10 years) I realized what a loathsome form of association the republican party is. The party deserves to go the way of the passenger pigeon.
For 25 years I was republican party loyalist before getting involved with the party at the activist level. No more after seeing the slimy tactics used by the party to keep the status quo in power and actively work to discourage citizens verses career politicians I am done with the party. And guess what, I suspect other people are just beginning to see what I saw. The party is rotten to the core. It is not a party of ideals, the republican party is not standing on the shoulders of giants by enacting the principles of our Founding fathers, rather they hollowly echo the words of our Founders while deliberately crafting a system that is insular and designed to transfer power from we the people to party insiders. This is an affront to founding principles.
Now I am proudly independent, and guess what I suspect a whole lot of others will be joining me.
Just because Trump is complaining doesn’t mean that he isn’t right in that the entire party apparatus with all of its complex and byzantine rules is meant to stifle democracy. It is clear that our country needs major reform again so that oligarchs don’t destroy it. The Founders warned against “factions” or political parties. The sordid nonsense we see going on now where Trump has won the popular votes in states and districts and yet the delegates will not be his loyalists is absolutely unacceptable in a country that purports to be the greatest democracy the world has ever known.
While I have no argument with your bashing of the Republican establishment, just what direction should this specific complaint take? Cruz is the villain because he played by the rules set forth months ago when he was just one of seventeen candidates? Trump should be awarded the delegates just because he’s ahead at this point? How are these delegates to be selected at this stage of the game to reflect the fairness that seems to be the concern? To me, it’s just senseless whining at this point. If something needs to be done, you beat them at their own game and then change whatever it is that has raised your ire. That was the goal of the early Tea Party movement and there seems to have been considerable progress towards that end in the last seven years.
Will “The Donald” whine about the Constitution being in his way if he were to be elected? You play with the cards dealt to you and the rules of the game as set forth in the beginning of the game. It really is a bit immature to be blaming Cruz for the rules that were set forth and that he had to play by while Trump was resting on his laurels. I thought “The Donald” said he could get things done? It seems that Cruz is working a bit harder than Trump is to achieve his goal and that’s why he’s so upset.
As for the fears that the convention will be taken over by the establishment, Cruz and Trump have such a vast majority of delegates combined that the rules made at the convention should preclude any other candidate from being named the Republican candidate. Even as the rules stand today, it takes a twenty per cent minimum delegate count just to have your name entered into nomination. The deck is stacked against the establishment and it is of their own doing. They will be beaten at their own game and Cruz and Trump need to come to some sort of agreement to keep things civil.
Absolutely, positively, 100 % dead-on accurate.
Yet Mr Rhoads chooses to chastise and ridicule those of us whom have seen the light and refuse to allow ourselves to be abused any longer.
Thanks for making it obvious which side you’re on Mr Rhoads – ‘preciate it.
Everything Izod says might be true but that still does not explain why Donald Trump is so incredibly stupid that he could not even get his own children to register in time to vote for him in New York. And this is the guy who is supposedly so smart that we can trust him with nuclear launch codes? No way, he is a childish demagogue who cannot be trusted with any serious public office above alderman.
Every American in politics has known from childhood that the primary rules differ from state to state.
Both parties.
Donald Trump thought he could steal our party’s nomination by flying into a state, making a big splash, showing off his helicopter and his baseball cap, then flying out the next day.
He Was Wrong.
The party rules are designed to ensure that the people who win the presidency are people who aren’t just interested in Washington DC, but who have taken an interest in the individual states, and built up real, lasting friendships, allegiances, and support structures in each of the individual states.
Trump can’t BUY that. A candidate has to EARN it.
JFD
“The party rules are designed to ensure……”
…that those who are currently in power remain in power, even if they are hell-bent on handing over this country’s sovereignty and turning it into a lawless third-world hellhole.
There ‘ya go Mr Di Leo, I fixed it for ‘ya!
Sounds just like an oligarchy to me……
Sure sounds like how you allowed Democrat Bruce Rauner to steal your party’s nomination, take over your party, and make it his own. He never earned it. He bought it. And the GOP sycophants eat it up.