Reince Priebus has given Donald J. Trump fair warning.
He might face “consequences” if the fails to fall in line and support the Republican Party’s presidential nominee if it happens to be someone other than Trump his own self.
The RNC chairman might have little actual power to inflict damage on the still-presumed frontrunner for the GOP nomination.
Those consequences, though, could take on lives of their own if the convention in Cleveland gets out of hand.
Let’s flash back — shall we? — to 1972. The other major political party, the Democrats, had a raucous gathering in Miami, Fla. They had gone through a rough-and-tumble primary season and from the rubble of that protracted battle there emerged a candidate to seal the nomination.
U.S. Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota became the Democratic nominee. His campaign theme was as simple as Bernie Sanders’s theme is today: Bring the troops home from the Vietnam War, which Sen. McGovern opposed with every fiber of his being.
Well, he didn’t win the presidency that year. He lost it huge to President Nixon in that 49-state wipeout.
It might be that a partial reason for the huge loss was the timing of his acceptance speech.
The convention delegates had battled day and night over rules changes. McGovern’s forces had sought wholesale change in the rules, which usually are a sort of work in progress as the convention unfolds.
They fought, squabbled and bickered on the convention floor.
Finally, after all that fighting, Sen. McGovern strode to the podium and urged the nation to “come home, America.” It was quite a stirring speech. I watched him deliver it from my apartment in Portland, Ore., where I lived with the girl I had married less than a year earlier.
He gave the speech at 2 a.m. That’s 2 in the morning, man. It was 11 p.m. on the Left Coast. But he wasn’t really talking to us. His remarks were meant to be heard by that big voter base back east.
A lot of those voters had hit the sack by the Sen. McGovern accepted his party’s nomination.
As I look back on it now, I figured that was a “consequence” of Democrats failing to have their ducks lined up.
There well might be a similar consequence this summer in Cleveland as Republicans gather to send their nominee into battle against the Democrats.
Will it be the work of Chairman Priebus? Maybe.
Then again, he might not have to do anything to make Trump pay for his rebellion.
Why no similar warning for Cruz and Kasich? They both have indicated they won’t support Trump. It seems Priebus himself isn’t very committed to the candidate should that be Donald Trump. And I think Trump is right that there will be rioting if he goes in with almost the delegates to win or even more and the party works to deny him the spot in favor of some ghost candidate. And why shouldn’t they? The country cast their votes. If those are ignored, could there be a better reason to cast stones instead?
Just a hunch: Priebus sees Cruz and Kasich as “real Republicans”; Trump, he may think, is an interloper.
You know, when I was a kid I learned about all these “democracies” which would hold elections only between candidates approved by the ruling party, or mullahs or the military. I was raised to appreciate the fact America was not that type of oligarchy, theocracy or other type of banana republic. I’m not much of a fan of Donald Trump, but when I see the government shut to those not considered”real Republicans,” I’m not so sure. Trump may be a threat to our democracy, or maybe he just threatens to expose the fact we no longer have a real democracy to threaten.