Syte Reitz

The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world…….

Browsing Posts tagged 1237 delegates

The Truth About Brokered Conventions

or

Media (and other) Efforts to Steer the Republican Nomination

xxx

What IS a Brokered Convention?Slide1

The news has recently been filled with alarmism about the possibility of a Republican brokered convention occurring this summer. But since brokered conventions have been relatively rare in our nation’s history, few voters know just exactly what a brokered convention is. The media (as well as some campaigns)  feel free to define, re-define, misrepresent and mold brokered conventions into anything they would like them to be.

What a wonderful opportunity for progressives to attack and to discredit conservatives!

Progressives – both in the media and elsewhere – have managed to portray standard Republican in-party conflict resolution rules  (like the brokered convention) as something new- as rigging and manipulation by the Republican “establishment,” with a goal of excluding certain candidates or otherwise circumventing the will of the American people.

Note that all the same issues- the susceptibility of any potential brokered convention to manipulation by various groups at war for power, the relevance of primaries, and Party control by superdelegates – these issues exist as well in the Democrat Party.  Yet when it comes to these issues, media attacks seem focused primarily on the Republican Party, which is undergoing an inner battle over the preservation of conservative Judeo-Christian values. The Democrat Party actually has more authoritarian undemocratic mechanisms in place to preserve the status quo than do Republicans, yet it seems relatively protected from viscous media attack.

RNC RulesAside: The characterization of Party Rules and policy as vile and authoritarian is a “progressive” (more accurately “regressive”) view.  But defending the right of a private political group to maintain their conservative values can be defended on the basis of our system of government, a democratic republic, which was actually carefully designed with the protection of certain fundamental rights in place, safe even from election manipulation.  More on that later!

So let’s examine this question of the brokered convention- how it has been portrayed or misportrayed, why is it misportrayed, and what is a brokered convention, really?

Aside #2 : see also the previous related article,Have We Ditched Democracy? Was the Colorado Primary Rigged?, which discusses the similar misportrayal of the primary system by media and by some candidates, in an effort to damage the credibility and reputation of the Republican Party.

Portraying a Brokered Convention as a Malicious Tool

Some in the media portray the brokered convention as a malicious tool broken out by the Republican “establishment” to take the Republican nomination away from front-runner candidates whom they do not like.  They even go so far as to say that the purpose of the brokered convention is to get rid of Donald Trump.

If this were to be the case, Republicans would have to be pretty far-sighted, since brokered conventions are as old as the election of Abraham Lincoln.  The brokered convention, a tool for settling conflict methodically, is an old and fair tool and not a recent invention.

Slide2It is not highly likely that Lincoln and his colleagues were already plotting against Donald Trump when the brokered convention was first implemented! 🙂

So, no, a brokered convention was not invented for the purpose of getting rid of Donald Trump, as Newsweek would have you believe.

Portraying a Brokered Convention as an Authoritarian Throwback

Even some relatively conservative media sources are critical of the brokered convention and they imply that the implementation of these old Republican Party rules reflects the global return of authoritarian regimes worldwide.  No, you did not read that wrong, we kid you not, a  Fox News article  just juxtaposed brokered conventions with a piece on authoritarianism ‘gone global!’

finger-wagRecently, when Republican Rules Committee member Curly Haugland clarified the Rules of the Republican Party on binding of delegate votes, much of the media jumped to claim that the authoritarian Republican establishment was again trying to get rid of front-running candidates by allowing delegates to abandon the will of the people as expressed in the primaries and caucuses.

And many well educated good Americans are surprised to hear that their vote may not be binding in a Primary.  These rules of civics are no longer taught in schools, and few understand why these rules might actually be useful in protecting democracy. These rules are particularly useful in protecting the Republican Party from election fraud, which is a common technique these days, exercised by Democrats and taught by Barack Obama when he was a professor.  See Have We Ditched Democracy? Was the Colorado Primary Rigged?
.
So no, authoritarian control of America is definitely not the purpose or goal of a brokered convention. No more than traffic lights or any other rules of law and order that have been adopted in this country to provide order.  So many Americans really don’t understand the purpose of a brokered convention!

Using RNC Rules and a Brokered Convention as a Campaign Tool

And it’s not just the media.
Many politicians misrepresent brokered conventions to their own advantage.

Donald Trump misrepresents brokered conventions and the Rules of the Republican Party.  Since we doubt that the Donald is simple-minded or that he has failed to do his homework on the Republican nomination process, that leaves the option that Trump could be misrepresenting facts to suit his campaign purposes.Slide2

Trump casts the routine Republican practice of reviewing and revising the Rules of the Republican Party at the start of each convention as an effort to cheat him of his “right” to be nominated.
Despite the fact that RNC rules governing whether the 2016 Convention will be brokered have been available to everyone since 2012,  Trump portrays a brokered convention as a recent plot to unseat him from what he feels as his entitled place as the Republican nominee.  Trump insists that he must be the nominee because he is the front runner at the moment (the race is not yet over), and ignores the fact that he does NOT have the 51% in eight States  that is required by RNC rules since 2012 to even enter the Convention, forget about being the only and “presumptive” Republican nominee.

Trump wants to redefine the rules to suit himself, to run the Republican nomination process like a horse race, where the leading horse can win by a nose, regardless of the margin.  Trump refuses to acknowledge that Republicans have never handled the Presidential nomination like a horse race, but have evolved rules over the years, similar to General Election rules, that require a candidate to win the favor of 51% of America before he/she can be President.  As of now, Donald Trump has won only 37 percent of Republican votes and is regarded unfavorably by more than 60 percent of general election voters.

Donald Trump has even gone so far as to suggest that his supporters will riot if  the Republican nomination is not awarded by the horse race mechanism. Sad to say, these tactics resemble Democrat Alinsky tactics more than they do those of the conservative Republican that Donald a Trump claims to be.

Slide1Most recently, Donald Trump’s campaign is accusing the Primary Process of not being democratic.  Despite the fact that Primaries are now routinely sabotaged, and some States have begun to lean toward trusting their delegates who support the Party Platform rather than trusting the results of primaries which are susceptible to outside manipulation by Democrats in 24 States – despite these facts, and despite the fact that the Republican system (and even more so the Democrat system!) have safeguards built in to retain control of the Party within the Party- Donald Trump’s attitude is to arrive, to take advantage of the Republican Party infrastructure to gain support for his campaign, to fail to educate himself on the system (or choose to ignore the system), to assume that the system was built that way to make life difficult for him, and to proclaim the system crooked for not agreeing with him. Or, at least, so he claims.Slide1

Donald Trump forgets that the Republican Party is a collection of like-minded conservative individuals who have banded together to nominate an individual who represents their values, and they have the right of free speech to nominate a person consistent with their values.  Donald forgets that he himself embodies only a portion of Republican Party Platform conservative values, and has waffled dangerously on many other Republican values, including freedom of religion, abortion and gay marriage.  Donald forgets that he himself for decades has supported people and groups who oppose Republican values.  Donald forgets that he has still failed to win the support of 51% of the American people.
Donald forgets all this, and accuses the Republican Primary process of not being democratic.  

Donald also forgets that despite his complaints, the Republican delegate system has actually given Trump a 22 Percent Bonus, according to NBC News.

Donald Trump’s outrage is contagious, is spreading to his supporters, and is very useful as well for getting free media coverage for his campaign.

The squeaky wheel often gets oiled, and so The Donald has many Americans persuaded that the Primary system is rigged.  It’s not.  See Have We Ditched Democracy? Was the Colorado Primary Rigged?

Donald is actually playing the age-old and primitive, yet effective sympathy card-  the “my dog ate my homework, the smart kid in the class is an apple-polisher (that would be Cruz), and the mean teacher (the GOP) is out to get me” routine.

Portraying the Brokered Convention as a DirtyBack Room Deal

Slide2Even reputable publications like The Atlantic have succumbed to misrepresentation of the brokered convention.  The Atlantic states that nominating Trump is better than a brokered Republican convention, and entitles their article The Convention the GOP Does Not Want.

In the article, The Atlantic not only promotes nominating Donald Trump, but also goes on to suggest that Mitt Romney is the one who is suggesting that Republicans need a brokered convention.
Mitt Romney?
A brokered convention is not held when one famous politician thinks one should be held!

Has The Atlantic not done it’s homework?

So if a Brokered Convention is Not a Dirty Deal, What IS a Brokered Convention?
Slide3

A brokered convention (related terms include contested convention, open convention) is a mechanism designed for arriving at one nominee when Party members cannot agree during the Primary season. It’s a scripted process of elimination that is based on serious mathematical theories, calculated and predetermined rules designed to be fair to everyone involved.  The brokered convention is a sort of Geneva Convention that spells out the rules of gentlemanly conduct when factions of the Party are at war.

Depending on the degree of turmoil or conflict in the party, the brokered convention can help to zero in on one of a few leading candidates, or, if there is a stubborn tug of war between two sides, the brokered convention has mechanisms for introducing a compromise candidate.

A Compromise Candidate- Isn’t that Bad?

Conflict resolution mechanisms similar to the brokered convention are used everywhere when people cannot agree, and where civilized folks want to script the battle to be fair.  Some even speculate that Pope Francis was chosen as someone who was not the favorite of either “side,” of conflicting groups.  Sometimes these “compromise” candidates can turn out to be the greatest men of history-  like Presidents Lincoln and Reagan, and Pope John Paul II.Slide1

When the Brokered Convention is Used in American Politics

In American politics, a brokered convention is held on the relatively rare occasion when Republicans simply cannot agree on a nominee throughout the primary season, when the primary votes are insufficient to finalize the choice of nominee, and when further rounds of voting are required to get 51% of Republicans behind one candidate.
A brokered convention is held when the Party is obviously split, or when the Party has too many candidates. There are measures or litmus tests of just how split the party is- these are the 1237 delegate estimates or the Rule 40(b) estimates (plurality in 5 States before 2012 and majority in 8 States since 2012).

When the primaries fail to produce a candidate supported by half ( yes half, not one third) of the Party, a brokered convention is held to follow specific rules for resolution, so that the Party would not split in half, thereby handing victory automatically to the opposing Party, the Democrats.

Slide1And speaking of the opposing Party, the  Democrat Party rules are actually less “democratic” than the Republican Party rules.  Democrat Rules are more “authoritarian,” and they have a larger proportion of unbound super delegates.  They also have brokered conventions when races are too close, and Party leadership also holds a considerable amount of power. This is not a dirty deal in either Party- why would you want to allow outside forces to take over and control a private organization, which both the Republican and Democrat Parties happen to be?

Isn’t It Unfair to Have Delegates and Superdelegates for Whom I Did Not Vote Determining the Nomination?

Well, first of all, why would you or I assume that there exists some magical source of people available to serve us, to become delegates, attend conventions, pay their own expenses, campaign, give up their free time, and otherwise participate in the giant mechanism that is the United States Presidential Election, without pay and without assistance from you and me?Who me?

If you or I were very invested in politics, we should be doing all the above things.  And if we were very active in our State’s Republican Party, we probably would have more say in choosing the delegates, or even become a delegate ourselves.  For people like me, who insist on our “Independence,” and neither belong to nor participate in the Republican Party (other than spending 15 minutes to run into a voting booth once every four years), we are lucky that they let us vote and take our opinion into account at all. Our “right to vote comes in at the General Election, and not at this private group’s nomination process- either Republican or Democrat.

Running for President is Complicated- and it’s Not Paid for by the Government

Those who are very invested in politics have to run for office, collect a million signatures, and fill out a myriad of complex application forms to be listed on the ballot in each State– a new set of complex applications and procedures in each of 50 States and 6 territories, and then they have to travel the United States campaigning for votes.

OR,

Slide1Those interested in running for the Office of President can find a private political organization like the Republican Party, or the Democrat Party, which has done all of the above for them, and which has collected lots of money to boot, and they could try to piggyback on the Republican/Democrat Party and on its reputation, which has been built by active Republicans/Democrats for decades.

If We Don’t Belong to a Group, and it’s Not a Government Group, Why Should That Group Let Us Control Them?

Those of us who do not join a political party and who do not run for political office ourselves should not be too fussy about how much power Republicans give us in return for our optional 15 minutes in the election booth.  Basically, people who are not active in an organization can have no gripe when they don’t like the decisions that have been made.

Don’t We Live in a Democracy?

It may seem fair that voters should decide everything in a democracy.  But there are very good reasons for limiting a democracy, and that’s what we have in the United States- a limited democracy, a democratic republic.  That’s something else that should be taught in Civics class in grammar school – the difference between a democracy and a democratic republic.

A democratic republic is, strictly speaking, a country that is both a republic and a democracy. It is one where ultimate authority and power is derived from the citizens, and the government itself is run through elected officials.
It is presumed that the elected officials are the experts, akin to our doctors, lawyers, architects and other experts who know more about a subject than we do and who help us ignoramuses (ignorami? 🙂 ) make good decisions in our lives.Who Rules

We citizens choose the experts whom we trust to carry out the complicated business of government for us when we cannot do everything ourselves.  And in a Presidential Primary, those experts are the delegates and superdelegates.

In a democratic republic, popular vote can choose the broad direction that citizens want to pursue, such as a conservative or liberal government, or the specific direction the government takes, like reducing federal regulation of individual lives, or expanding federal regulation of economy.  But how these general principles play out and how conflicting priorities can be resolved are things that require highly specialized and professional elected officials to work out.

The choice of candidate who will best serve the interests of a particular political party and it’s platform is not something that can be left to a popular vote, with 24 States allowing Democrats and Independents to vote in a Republican Primary and vice versa.

The Bottom Line

So the bottom line is that our nation is divided right now.  Not only between conservatives and progressives, but even within each party.

The friction, split, and superabundance of candidates in the Republican Party today is exactly the type of confusing situation for which the brokered convention was designed. We NEED and must have a brokered convention, and this is a good thing.

Slide1Those who assume that Republican liberals will win the scripted battle of the brokered convention fail to realize that there is at least an equal chance that Republican conservatives will have the opportunity to reclaim the Republican Party at the brokered convention.

.

If if you shy away from a battle, you cannot win it.
That bears repeating:
If you shy away from a battle, you cannot win it.

What to Expect at a Brokered Convention

What do we expect from a brokered convention?
We expect the unexpected.
Nobody can predict the outcome of a war, civilized and scripted or not.
But seriously, there some predictions we can try to project.

So here are some generalizations that will probably hold true for Republicans as we approach the very probably brokered convention in Cleveland in July:

  • It is likely that no candidate will get the majority of 1237 (estimated) delegate votes.
  • It is likely that no candidate will satisfy the present Rule 40(b), and will not have a majority (>51%) in 8 States.
  • Therefore, NOBODY will qualify to enter the convention.Slide1

Since a convention cannot be held with NO CANDIDATES, the RNC Rules committee will be forced to change Rule 40(b) in order to allow candidates into the convention.

  • NOTE: the Party members are not doing this to be mean, authoritarian, or to exclude anybody.  They are doing it so that somebody, instead of nobody, could be considered for nomination at the convention.
  • NOTE #2: The people on the RNC Rules committee are NOT mean “establishment” Republicans, but a mix of all kinds of Republicans, including the ones who support conservatives and the ones who support Donald Trump.

Possibilities:

Curly Haugland, North Dakota

One long time member of the Rules Committee already announced a year ago, before many candidates had even announced their candidacy, a fair proposal for the Rules Committee. Curly Haugland, superdelegate from North Dakota, proposed that if nobody clears the bar of 1237 or majority in 8 States, that all candidates who received even one single delegate should be included in the first vote.
That would include in the first vote at this  point Trump (954), Cruz (562), Rubio (171), Kasich (153), Carson (9), Bush (4), Fiorina (1), Huckabee (1), and Paul(1).

There will be at least a first vote.
Since it has been established that all Republican delegates have the free will to vote their conscience, the counting of delegates can only be estimated.
Nobody can say for sure how many delegates a candidate has until after the first vote at the Cleveland Convention.
So there has to be a first vote.
And in 2016, the first vote could bring some surprises that are impossible to forecast at any point before the first vote occurs.

If anybody wins 51% in the first vote, Republicans will have a nominee.
If nobody wins the first vote, additional votes are held until one nominee gets the required majority.  Delegates can change their votes, responding to input from candidates, party leadership, and political maneuvering.Floor Fight

After the first vote, additional names can be proposed and added to the list of candidates, including individuals who did not run in the primaries.  So in 2016, for example, somebody could propose adding Sarah Palin to the list.  Scott Walker, who did not collect a single delegate before his early suspension of his campaign, could easily be returned in to the running.
It is possible that a party, gridlocked between two candidates, say Trump and Cruz, could compromise and shift votes to a compromise candidate, who could be anyone- Carson, Santorum, Fiorina, Walker, Bush, Ryan, Palin,………….or anybody else.  Candidates who have not yet been damaged by the highly combative and money-driven primary process, and who could yield an historical leader like Abraham Lincoln or Ronald Reagan, could enter the Convention as a conservative “compromise” candidate.

Alternative Surprises
Mr. Squeaky Wheel Trump is already declaring himself the Presumptive Nominee today, after yesterday’s victories in several east coast states.  Between his derision of the GOP for their 51% rules, and his accusations of rigging if he does not automatically get the nomination with 37%, who knows whether Mr. Trump could succeed in intimidating the GOP to change rules in such a way as to hand the nomination to him. Stranger things have happened in the last 8 years with Barak Obama’s Presidency, with a President taking legal liberties that never could have been imagined or forecast previously.

More Information

For more excellent information on brokered conventions and their history, see the non-partisan political information source BallotPedia on brokered conventions.

ballotpedia2-630x286

What Are Our Conservative Prospects?

So no, the brokered convention is not a dirty back room deal, but an opportunity to reclaim America and make it great, with or without Donald Trump as the Republican nominee.  One word here about Donald Trump- in order to be that leader of the future whom we are seeking, he would have to get on board with the conservative “social” issues of religious freedom, abortion and marriage, which are actually ethical, not “social” issues, which are encoded in the Republican Party Platform, and which are supported by the majority of the citizens of the United States.  We would need a “conversion of St. Donald,” or, in Donald’s language, a HUGE deal, in which Donald sold his soul to God, as most Americans do.

And, speaking of back room deals, Mitt Romney’s supporters were the ones who used a dirty back room deal in 2012 to avoid a brokered convention, in which Mitt Romney would have had to enter a fair fight to win his nomination which so many conservative Republicans opposed at that time. The Big Rule Switch of 2012 was engineered by Mitt Romney supporters, was engineered to exclude Ron Paul from the 2012 Convention, and was the real dirty back room deal that is now actually complicating life for Donald Trump, as he tries to qualify for nomination.  Romney’s maneuver also caused 4 million Republican voters to choose not to participate in the 2012 election, with the consequent sad outcome for Mr. Romney.

There is a fight going on for the soul of the GOP.

.God the Father Cima da Conegliano
Depending on what Americans choose, both in the presidential nominations and the General Election, will determine whether the Judeo-Christian principles that built America prevail, or whether regressivism and the eradication of respect for our creator, God, will win.

 

 

 

Election Infiltration

and

Here Comes Paul Revere!
.

Some Shocking Realizations

Let’s put the shocking news bluntly:
Slide1

As the new Paul Revere exposes the truth and suggests possible remedies, we must all decide whether to heed his alarm or whether to let progressives continue their take over of the Republican Party.Slide1

BTW: Don’t blame the Republicans
later if you don’t lift a finger
to help their conservative contingent during the present battle.

 

Have You Lost Your Marbles, or is this the Story of the Century?

Now some will want to question the sanity of the above suggestion-  that Republicans have been succumbing to grand scale election manipulation by outsiders for several decades -but give this a paragraph or two more, and see what your common sense tells you after that.

Most conservatives will willingly acknowledge that liberals have slowly and clandestinely penetrated many other crucial elements of our society, from universities, to Hollywood, to the media.  Examples of clandestine infiltration of one’s enemy can be  also be seen throughout history-  from the Trojan Horse stories of 11th century BC to the widespread  infiltration of political movements today. Reports abound of Alinsky tactics used by today’s progressives, which include detailed instructions on the infiltration of opponents with intention to disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize conservatives.

Slide1In the present political climate, with the President of the United States enforcing laws selectively, with Supreme Court Justices overriding the will of the American people on the definition of marriage and on ObamaCare, with elected Republicans abandoning conservative platform values and chumming up and selling out to the opposition, with Secretaries of State committing grossly dangerous  national security email violations and a socialist candidate who is just one opponent’s FBI indictment away from becoming a major contender in the US Presidential race, is it really so unreasonable to consider whether a decades- long monumental hijacking of Republican nominations has taken place by clandestine liberals, and whether true conservatives who actually support the (still-conservative) Republican Platform are on the brink of losing the Republican Party altogether?

Are You Sold?  Or At Least Curious?
Then Read On…

If you are prepared to accept the possible infiltration of the Republican Party’s nomination process by progressives in recent decades, and want to hear what our modern day Paul Revere has to say about what he has unearthed and what can be done about it, read on.

So Who Is This “Paul Revere?” and later, What is He Saying?

Slide1

Who is raising the alarm on the infiltration of the Republican presidential nomination process?
Our modern “Paul Revere” is Curly Haugland, a member of the Republican “Establishment.”

“Aha!” you say- “Establishment Republican!” “One of those nefarious people trying to thwart the wishes of the American people, who are trying to sneak in Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio or John Kasich into the Republican convention!”

Actually, NO.

Crucial Fact #1:

  • In the presently very conflicted Republican Party, there are “Establishment” members on both sides of the conflict- conservative and progressive. Do not assume that “Establishment Republicans” are all out to nominate a progressive candidate – some of them are on the opposite team.
  • There are two kinds of “Establishment” Republicans.
    Read on carefully to see how you can help the conservative ones.
  • Hint: You do not NOT help the conservative ones by lumping them in with the progressives and dismissing them as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are on the verge of recommending!

Curly Haugland is as conservative as they come– he wrote GOP Field Must Use 2016 to Force Conservative Primary Reform for Breitbart in December of 2015.
This bears repeating- Use 2016 to Force Conservative Primary Reform!

Curly Haugland is an unbound delegate, a senior GOP official.  He is a national committeeman of the North Dakota Republican State Committee, from 2004 to the present.  He is President of the North Dakota Policy Council, from 2006 to the present.  He was on the RNC Rules Committee since 2009, and was RNC State Chairman for the North Dakota GOP from 1999-2001. He has the common “humble American can make it good” story that so many of us have and that inspires so much love for the Constitution and for the United States in all of us.

So What Did Curly Say?

Slide1Curly said he has found hard evidence that Republican delegates are ALL unbound, and are all free to vote their conscience at the Republican Convention in Cleveland in July.

Curly announced his findings in a letter to the RNC.
Not one member of the GOP, not even Chairman Reince Priebus, has contradicted Curly’s findings so far.
Curly states in his letter:

Binding delegates to the results of presidential preference primaries first appeared in the Rules of the Republican Party in 1976. ….. And, 1976 was also the last time delegates have been bound by convention rules to cast their votes according to the results of binding primary elections………“Select, allocate and bind. The fraudulent addition of these three words to the Rules of the Republican Party in the 2008 Convention, as detailed in Chapter One, is the political equivalent of “spinning straw into gold”. Without the use of force to bind the votes of delegates to the results of the primary process, primaries are nearly worthless “beauty contests”.

So Curly has produced the hard evidence showing that the “binding” provision was added to the RNC Rules fraudulently, and that Republican delegates were only “bound” for one Republican convention in 1976.
All the rest has been smoke and mirrors, with progressive infiltrators of the Republican Party trying to use “binding” to obtain control over the Republican nomination process for several decades.

The CorollarySlide1

A corollary is something that follows unavoidably and logically from a given fact.
So what follows unavoidably and logically from Curly’s fact finding that Republican delegates are not bound?

What follows, is that all this talk of bound delegates, committed delegates, plurality and majority of votes, “winner take all” and most importantly, of 1237 delegates and “presumptive nominee” is just that – talk. And speculation.
If  all delegates are free, it’s impossible to know whether anybody has 1237 delegates until the first vote at he Convention has been cast.Slide1

The corollary is that the Republican Party selects their nominee for President at the Convention, and not during the Primaries.  The Primaries are advisory in nature, and give the Party an opportunity to see and to consider what the public thinks.
But the Primaries are not binding in any way on the Republican Party.

That Sounds Like They’re Trying to Get Rid of Trump!

The facts that Curly Haugland has found are just historical facts and rules.
Those facts may be used by many people for many purposes.
Curly Haugland started his search for facts way before Donald Trump was ever thought to be a serious candidate.
Curly Haugland was actually searching for information on following one’s own conservative conscience when your party is besieged by progressives.

These Facts Might Make it Possible for Conservatives to Take Back the Republican Party with an “Outsider” like Ben Carson, or Carly Fiorina.

Slide1These new findings, that State delegates still have the rights that our American system first gave them, the same rights that Senators and Representatives and General Election Electors have, the rights that  counterbalance the primaries (which are often very skewed by voter fraud and by deep pocketed donors)- Curly’s finding that delegates are permitted to use their common sense and conscience to ensure that candidates are faithful to the Republican Party Platform, are very exciting.

These findings open new doors for nominating very conservative candidates — candidates like the 65% conservative Republican candidates who first ran with Donald Trump, and who were eliminated by the primary money game, while 65% of American voters were still backing them. The conservative voters of America should not be punished for the fact that so many conservative candidates came forward.

In fact, Curly, as a member of the Rules committee, will be proposing a Rule change to return more power to the Convention, where the delegates from 50 States and the territories represent the wishes of the States (as opposed to the Primaries, which often reflect the depth of the pockets of candidates).
Curly is proposing the reversal of the Mitt Romney Rule change of 2012, which allowed liberal Mitt Romney to kick conservative Ron Paul out of the Convention before it even started.  Curly’s new proposed rule allows any candidate who won any delegates in the State primaries to enter the Convention, so candidates with shallow pockets and no wealthy donors (like Ben Carson) are not punished at the outset.

God Bless Donald Trump’s Heroic Heart, He May Still Win- But Even The Donald has to Follow the Age-Old RulesSlide1

It is still premature to nominate Donald Trump, until it can be demonstrated at the Convention that he has won 51% of the Republican vote.

The entire history of the United States, starting with Federal elections and continuing with political party rules, is based on arriving at a candidate who has 51% of the people behind him or her.
This design is crafted very purposefully and carefully, to ensure that candidates are not punished when many people run, and to ensure that our nation is not governed by someone whom 65% of the nation does not want.

When there is a legitimate 51% backing of one candidate in the nation, that candidate is nominated.
But this year, with 17 candidates, the conservative vote was split between as many as 16 candidates.  Just because Donald Trump got one third of the nation behind him does not mean that the conservative voters whose candidates dropped out will back Donald Trump.

Donald Trump, no matter how loud he sells his case, must follow the rules.

And those rules have always been that if a person does not get 51% of the vote, or 1237 delegates, that person has to run off at the convention against other candidates, to give the people a final say.
And now we find out that the 1237 cannot be counted before the first ballot at the Convention.
This may not even be an issue, unless Donald Trump actually gets 1237 votes– but even then, who gets to estimate the number of delegates?

Slide1Aren’t the RINOS going to Take Advantage of the Brokered Convention?

Yes, there will be some  RINO progressive “establishment” types who may try to use these findings to their advantage, to re-introduce people like Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio, Mitt Romney or even Paul Ryan at a brokered convention.

But there will also be CONSERVATIVE “establishment” types like Curly, people who were elected and sent by their States, people who represent voters, not the Washington Republican elites, conservatives who are just as determined to reclaim the Republican Party and to stick to it’s still-conservative platform.

The Battle MUST Be Fought

This battle between the progressive and conservative Republicans MUST be fought out at the Convention, and it is wrong for Donald Trump, and the media, including Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, to declare that Donald Trump represents the will of the people when he does not have a majority, and thus to hand control of the Republican Party over prematurely to someone like Donald who is only partially conservative and who may not support the “social” conservative aspects of the Republican Party Platform, which represent the Judeo-Christian values that most of us Americans professes to hold.

Isn’t Curly Cheating Donald Trump of a Legitimate Win?

No, Curly is not cheating Donald Trump of anything.

Neither Donald Trump, nor some voters, nor Rush Limbaugh, nor Sean Hannity, seem to realize that there is a big difference between a plurality and a majority, that Donald does not have the majority, he just has the plurality, and that there are whole fields of mathematics and political science which calculate the fairest way to run off competing candidates in an election.  Those principles have been incorporated into our General Election Rules, into the RNC Rules, and into Roberts Rules of Order which governs the RNC.  We need to continue following those rules in 2016.

Shame on SomeSlide1

One alarming aspect of the 2016 Election is that some very big players have not only failed to do their homework and to understand the rules of the game, but they have also recently started discussing “riots” and “violence” if the 35% of Americans who support Donald Trump do not instantly get their way.

Donald Trump, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity have referred to the “riots” that they claim will result if Donald Trump does not get the Republican nomination.  Suggestion of riots by such nationally known figures are tantamount to inciting of riots, and shame on Donald, shame on Rush, and shame on Sean for abusing their status and talking this way.

Those of us who are fair-minded may be happy to vote for a President Trump in November, but we don’t like to see our conservative colleagues using the left’s Alinsky scare tactics, nor do we want to be deprived of the chance that a brokered convention could very legitimately produce a staunch conservative President like the ones produced by two other brokered conventions – Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan.

Aren’t Republicans Trying to Thwart the Will of the People?
Some May Be, But Some are Trying to Win Back the Conservative Platform

These developments do not mean that the Republican Party is thwarting the will of the people.

In fact, they would be out of business pretty quickly if they tried to thwart the will of the people, as evidenced by the disillusionment of the electorate with the nomination of Mitt Romney in 2012.

Slide1Yes, there is a civil war going on in the Republican Party between conservatives and progressive infiltrators, but progressives have won only a few battles, and many conservatives are not giving up the fight.

So why should we give up the battle before it has even started?

Watching Reince Priebus sweating out a stuttered answer about Curly’s claims on Sean Hannity yesterday is all we need to know, to gauge our chances of success in reclaiming conservatism through a brokered convention.
Don’t let the fear-mongers push us into premature nominations!

May God bless and guide America!

All Posts