Tuesday, March 22, 2016

GA GOP Trickery

Is the Cruz Campaign trying to subvert the will of voters? By: Debbie Dooley (Diary)  3/21/16

On March 1, Donald Trump overwhelmingly won the Georgia Republican Primary taking 38.8% of the vote and winning 42 delegates. His nearest competitor was Marco Rubio who took 24.4% of the vote. Georgia Republican voters sent a strong message that they wanted Donald Trump to be the Republican nominee.

On Saturday the arcane process began in Georgia to elect delegates to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland where the Republican nominee will be “officially” selected. The process had already begun for the larger counties in February with the “mass precinct” meetings. The mass precinct meetings are open to all Republican voters. Attendees sign up to be delegates to their Republican County Convention, where delegates are elected to go to the Congressional District Conventions and also the GOP State Convention. The District and State convention actually elect delegates to the Republican National Convention.

In years past, the delegates elected were party regulars or donors that could be counted on to cast their vote for the candidate with a healthy lead in the delegate race-even if he had not reached the magic delegate number of 1237. This year is quite different with the talk of a contested convention and the organized effort of some to stop Donald Trump at all costs. Unlike prior years, it is vital that the will of the voters is respected and that the delegates elected can be trusted to fight for the intent of voters that they represent at the Republican National Convention. The delegate selection process in Georgia and other states with similar arcane delegate selection processes is more important than ever. It is this delegate selection process, that I believe the Cruz Campaign is attempting to take advantage of to subvert the will of voters.

Disturbing reports surfaced in Georgia in the week leading up to the GOP County Conventions that some in the Cruz Campaign have an organized effort to thwart the will of voters by making sure Cruz supporters are elected as delegates to represent Donald Trump in Cleveland.  A March 14th, Atlanta Journal Constitution Political Insider column titled, “In Georgia, the quiet effort to dump Donald Trump begins Saturday,  confirms the effort.  “Everybody is locked into their first vote. Following that, it’s the wild, wild West. There’ll be a lot of action that occurs for the subsequent vote,” said Scott Johnson, former chairman of the Cobb County GOP and a grass-roots co-chairman for the Ted Cruz effort in Georgia.

Which means that, as Trump delegates from here and other states are selected, their secondary loyalties become very, very important. Call it the hunt for double agents, or at least covert sympathizers. Nominating slates are being drawn up this week, Johnson said.”

At the Gwinnett County GOP Convention, which I attended, I witnessed no such efforts. The new activists were welcomed and the process to elect delegates to the District and State Conventions was very fair. I have, however, received reports that in some counties, the process was not fair and people were excluded from being delegates based on who they were supporting for President. Once Republican National Convention delegates are selected at the District and State Conventions, we will have a better idea if the will of voters was ignored.

What is really disturbing is that news reports clearly show that this is a national effort by the Cruz Campaign to thumb their noses at the will of voters by working to make sure delegates pledged to Donald Trump on the first round, have their real loyalties to the man that finished behind Donald Trump in many states – Sen. Ted Cruz. They are more than willing to subvert the intent of voters in order to win, while at the same time claiming to stand up for the grassroots.

Sen. Cruz can’t have it both ways.  Standing up for the grassroots isn’t subverting their votes…Debbie Dooley @Crimsontider, Tea Party Movement Co-founder, Chairman, Atlanta Tea Party


Comments

Calls for unity at this point will be taken as code words for “dump Trump”.  Delegates will have a split second to figure out who is lying. They will not have time to “vet” the delegates selected for the National Convention. We will need to do our homework ahead of time using lists of GA GOP Elite.


Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

No comments: