'Big
Steal': RNC playing with rules to deny Trump nomination, by Douglas Ernst,
3/21/16, WND
'No way
in hell' Donald will be nominee if short just 1 delegate. Republican
presidential hopeful Donald Trump may need to outright win 1,237 delegates
to avoid what Breitbart News has deemed the “Big Steal” at a brokered
convention.
The
Republican National Committee has confirmed that a 2012 rule mandating a
candidate must win a majority of convention delegates in at least eight states
or territories to win the presidential nomination does not apply to 2016’s
field. “Rule 40(b),” which would have benefited Trump as the Republican
front-runner, will be of no use to him in July.
RNC
Chairman Reince Priebus confirmed the Rule 40(b) reality during an
interview with CNN on Sunday. “There
will always be a perception problem if people continue to miss – to not explain
the process properly. So, the 2012 rules committee writes the rules for the
2012 convention. The 2016 rules committee writes the rules for the 2016
convention,” Priebus said.
What this
means is that if the Republican Party has a contested convention in Cleveland,
Ohio, in July, then delegates will be at liberty to vote for any candidate they
choose on the second ballot. Trump currently has 678 delegates of the 1,237
needed to outright win the nomination, but Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is still
competitive at 423. Ohio Gov. John Kasich trails far behind at 143 delegates.
Trump is
in a precarious position if he does not win 1,237 delegates because, as
reported by Breitbart, it would be possible
for party insiders to stack the Rules Committee with individuals whose
“support” for the billionaire will disappear as soon as it is legally
permissible.
“Republican
state chairs are planting Trojan Horse delegates into slots won by Trump on the
first ballot to vote with them on procedural votes to pass the Rules and
Credentials Reports that will seal the ‘Big Steal,’ the website reported. “This
is going on in Texas, New York, Massachusetts, Michigan, Connecticut, North
Dakota, and other states.” The
website said it discovered the plan after it was given entry codes for a
conference call of five Republican chairmen from key states over the weekend.
“People
are under the misconception that it’s the results of the caucus and the results
of the primary that determines who becomes the nominee. In actuality, it’s the
delegates at the national convention that are supposed to pick the nominee,”
Diana Orrock, a delegate from Nevada and Donald Trump supporter, told CNBC Monday. “Going into
this convention, they’re going to try to do a lot of manipulation to try to
keep Trump from becoming the nominee. A lot of political operatives in the
Republican Party are trying to take Trump out at all costs.”
U.S. News
& World Report likened a scenario where Trump is denied the Republican
Party’s presidential nomination due to procedural sleight of hand to the
National Football League “changing the rules of the Super Bowl in the middle of
the third quarter.”
“That’s
essentially what the Republican National Committee would need to do in order to
impede Donald Trump’s advance to the presidential nomination at the July
convention,” the magazine reported Sunday.
Peter
Feaman, a Republican National Committeeman from Florida, said the RNC knows it
would be “bad for the party” if millions of people walked away thinking the
process was unfair. “Nobody
really wants a free-for-all. That’s not good for the party,” Feaman said
Sunday. A.J. Spiker, 2012 Republican delegate who was chairman of the Iowa GOP,
appeared to confirm Trump supporters’ worst fears.
“The
question is: Can Trump buy off enough people to keep people in line? These
people are all for sale,” Spiker said Sunday. “If you haven’t made enough
friends to pick up those votes, you don’t win. I think if Trump goes to the
convention short a delegate, he’s not going to be the nominee. There’s no way
in hell.”
Republicans
in Montana are doing little to quell rumors of plots to deny Trump the
Republican nomination. Party officials have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to
move before the state’s June 7 election to “close” its primary to voters
outside the GOP.
“This is
a First Amendment right,” state Republican Party lawyer Matthew Monforton told Fox News on Monday. “Without
relief from this court, non-members and Democratic-aligned institutions will
soon exploit Montana’s open primary and seek to nominate Republican candidates
opposed by the majority of Republican voters.”
Montana
has had an “open” primary since 1912. Supreme
Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has asked Montana Attorney General Tim Fox, a
Republican, to respond to Monforton’s appeal of a lower-court order, which
denied his request to close the June primary, the network reported.
Fox has
until Tuesday to respond.
Source:
WND
Comments
Fox and a
pile-on of others agree that if Trump goes to the convention with the most
delegates, he should get the nomination.
Norb
Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
ReplyDeleteThe appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is all about the rules of the Republican Party. They must clearly state how the party will associate with voters. Saying it in the platform won't cut it with the court.
The MT GOP rules say -- the party will abide by Montana laws.
Montana laws say -- the primary is open as it has been for 104 years.
Republicans who litigate when they should legislate are wasting time and money. Since I am a Democrat, I say "Please Continue to Squander your Resources into 2018. While Republicans are litigating, the Democrats will be legislating."
In Montana, Republicans are the crossover professionals--
ReplyDeleteTake 1964, when Republicans tampered with the Democratic primary for governor. 37,000 Republican voters, give or take a few, voted the Democrat ballot. Having been caught with data that could not be refuted, Republican Governor Tim Babcock said on 6/3/64. “the crossover by many Republicans was expected, but not encouraged.” He could not deny that furniture store promoter, Democrat Mike Kuchera aka Polka Mike, got 285 more votes than he did -- a sitting Republican governor.
But lets talk about crossover voters in 2008. In the contest for U.S. Congressman, Republicans crossed over to vote for Democrat candidate Driscoll to defeat Hunt which they succeeded in doing. But now it gets hilarious. They piled on votes for a relatively unknown presidential candidate -- Obama. Their motivation? "Anyone but Hillary!"