Tag Archives: RNC

Obama endorses ‘most qualified’ candidate for POTUS

barack-obama-and-hillary-clinton-2012

I admire President Barack Obama.

His two terms as president of the United States will be judged ultimately as a success, no matter what his critics keep harping at today with statements of his alleged “failed presidency.”

Thus, I accept his endorsement today of Hillary Rodham Clinton as a potentially decisive event in the upcoming election.

He called his fellow Democrat Clinton the “most qualified” person ever to seek the presidency.

Right there, Mr. President, I will beg to differ.

The most qualified individual ever to seek — and hold — the office is a Republican … in my humble view.

That would be George H.W. Bush, the 41st president.

I’ve taken note before about President Bush’s sparkling pre-presidency credentials: Navy combat aviator during World War II; successful businessman; member of Congress; special envoy to China; CIA director; Republican Party chairman; U.N. ambassador; vice president of the United States.

I don’t want to quibble too much with the president over this. Indeed, Hillary Clinton is supremely qualified to be president and commander in chief. Her resume includes first lady of the United States, U.S. senator and secretary of state.

“Most qualified,” though, is a stretch. Her record is stellar, but not as stellar as the one compiled by President Bush.

Partisan politics being what it is, though, a Democratic president isn’t going to offer credit to someone from the other party while endorsing a member of his own party to become the next president.

The credit that extends across the aisle is left to be handed out by those of us out here in the proverbial peanut gallery.

Thus, I am doing so here.

Here’s a ‘Dave’-like solution to picking nominees

National%20Party%20Convention

In the film “Dave,” Kevin Klein portrays the owner of an employment agency who bears this startling resemblance to the president of the United States.

Fate thrusts Dave into the role of filling in for the incapacitated president.

During a Cabinet meeting, the “president” — Dave — must find ways to cut the federal budget sufficiently to pay for some needed programs. He whips out a pencil and tablet and goes through the budget department by department and — presto! — finds the money.

Cabinet officials are stunned.

How might such a seemingly simple approach to problem-solving work in the real world of rough-and-tumble politics?

News organizations Monday night tallied up the delegates that Hillary Rodham Clinton has amassed and declared her to be the presumptive Democratic nominee for president of the United States. She joins Donald J. Trump, who already had become the Republicans’ presumed nominee.

Here, though, is the rub. Sen. Bernie Sanders isn’t going quietly into the night. He vows to continue fighting Clinton for delegates all the way to the party nominating convention.

Why? He doesn’t like the “super delegate” system used by the Democratic Party. The supers are those party big wheels — elected officials, mostly — who get to vote for whomever they wish. Sanders, who only recently joined the party after serving in the Senate as an independent, thinks it’s unfair to count those super delegates prior to the convention. They can change their minds and he intends to persuade enough of them to do exactly that.

The Republicans don’t have that problem. They don’t have super delegates. Frankly, I prefer the GOP method.

What might Dave do?

Let’s try this out.

Call a meeting of the two major political parties’ top brass, GOP boss Reince Priebus and Democratic chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Put them in a room along with their parties’ lawyers and pose the question, “How about making this process a bit more uniform?”

Priebus and Schultz aren’t close. Imagine that, right? They have serious disagreements.

It seems totally within reason, though, for the parties to adopt more uniform delegate-selection processes. To be frank, the super delegate system used by the Democrats seems a bit weird. Sanders is hoping to change enough minds between now and the convention that he could “steal” the nomination from Clinton. I think that, by itself, is unfair and underhanded.

If both parties’ leaders believe in developing fair and even-handed methods of choosing their nominees, is it too much to ask them to hammer out an agreement that works for both sides?

I get that none of this nominating process is prescribed in the U.S. Constitution. It’s strictly a party matter. Heck, the Constitution doesn’t even mention political parties.

I’d even prefer to see the national parties lay down rules simplifying the method of apportioning delegates. Do they prefer to award them on the basis of the candidates’ share of the popular vote? How about winner take all? It makes no never mind to me. Just make it uniform.

The hodge-podge we have now makes me crazy.

Politics need not be this complicated, man.

‘People’ do care about these things, Mr. Chairman

NATIONAL HARBOR, MD - MARCH 04:  Chairman of the Republican National Committee Reince Priebus participates in a discussion during CPAC 2016 March 4, 2016 in National Harbor, Maryland. The American Conservative Union hosted its annual Conservative Political Action Conference to discuss conservative issues.  (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Reince Priebus is painting the American electorate with a pretty broad brush these days.

The Republican Party’s national chairman says “people don’t care” about the controversies surrounding the GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee.

I beg to differ, Mr. Chairman.

“People” do care. Many of us — such as yours truly — care a lot.

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/rnc-chairman-reince-priebus-donald-trumps-controversies-people-just-dont-care?cid=sm_fb_msnbc

— Tax returns that Trump refuses to disclose to the public?

— Statements attributed to him about women?

— The myriad lies he’s told while campaigning for president?

— The ridiculous story about Trump posing as a publicist to promote himself?

Yeah, those things matter, Mr. Chairman. They speak to the character of the man who wants to become president of the United States.

I won’t get too far into this blog post without mentioning that Trump isn’t the only candidate with “issues” to address. Hillary Rodham Clinton has her own and they, too, are bothersome.

The issue at the moment deals with the huge speaking fees she collected — allegedly from Goldman Sachs .

The other matters — Benghazi, the email controversy — are being dealt with by a Republican-led Congress that is still on the hunt for something to derail her campaign.

The RNC chairman shouldn’t give his party’s presumed nominee a pass because of some belief that “people” don’t care about the things that are dogging his campaign.

I dislike saying I speak for others. I am fairly confident, though, in presuming that the nation is loaded with inquisitive voters who want these issues settled.

 

Trump needs to play by the rules

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The Republican National Committee says it won’t change the rules governing its upcoming presidential nominating convention.

Nor should it — despite the wailing and whining from Donald J. Trump.

Trump, until this week’s New York primary, hadn’t been faring well in some of the recent primary contests. Sen. Ted Cruz has been scoring a lot of convention delegates through a rules process that’s been written in stone for some time by the RNC.

Trump’s assertion that the process is “rigged,” that it’s a “disgrace” and that it’s a “sham” must be taken with a huge dose of salt.

The man entered the Republican nominating contest knowing — at least he should have known — how the rules work. Had he studied the process he would have crafted a campaign team trained to work within that process and would have been able to compete head-to-head with Cruz’s more experienced campaign staff.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/republican-committee-reject-convention-rules-delegates-222285

Now his campaign’s inexperience has been exposed and so Trump wants to change the rules.

The RNC has declared that the candidate who earns a majority of the delegates at the convention will be nominated. It’s not a plurality contest, which Trump seems to want.

The real estate mogul/reality TV celebrity should have known what to expect going in.

Oh wait. He’s not a politician, right?

That doesn’t excuse his ignorance on how one party’s political process works.

 

Whinin’ Donald needs to quit griping about delegates

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Donald J. Trump has a trove of nicknames he tosses out at his political foes.

Lyin’ Ted is one. So is Little Marco. Now he’s come up with Crooked Hillary.

Oh, but one of those adversaries, Ted Cruz, may have coined a name for Trump.

Whinin’ Donald.

Sen. Cruz today told Trump to quit his “whining” about the Republican Party’s delegate selection process leading up to the GOP presidential convention in Cleveland this summer.

Trump is griping about the process, calling it a “sham” and a “disgrace.” He says the game is rigged against him.

Actually, it’s not. It’s the way the RNC has set up the selection process. It allows candidates to persuade delegates to join their team. Trump’s campaign staff apparently hasn’t gotten the word on how the process works. They’re being outhustled by the Cruz Missile’s team.

Trump doesn’t like it.

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus says he isn’t changing anything. The rules are the rules, he said. Trump has to work within those rules, the chairman added.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/276595-rnc-chief-no-changes-to-delegate-requirement-likely

Priebus said the RNC will continue to insist that one of the candidates for president must have a majority of delegates pledged to capture the party’s presidential nomination. Trump suddenly is looking vulnerable in the hunt for delegates and he is arguing now that a plurality ought to be good enough.

No can do, Priebus said.

Trump now has turned to whining about the process.

This GOP campaign gets more fun as each day passes.

 

 

 

‘Unity’ appears headed for the cliff

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Donald J. Trump has a peculiar way of expressing his desire to bring the Republican Party together in a spirit of “unity.”

The GOP presidential frontrunner is emptying both barrels — rhetorically, of course — into Republican Party chairman Reince Priebus for allegedly stacking the nominating process against him … meaning Trump.

Trump is angry at the way U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas managed to corral all of Colorado’s Republican convention delegates this past week. He is steaming over losing the delegate count to Cruz while “winning” the Louisiana primary earlier.

Who’s to blame? Reince Priebus, said Trump. He’s working “against” the frontrunner. He calls the chairman’s alleged tactics “disgusting” and some other pejorative terms.

Priebus’s response is simple: The rules are the rules, Mr. Trump; get over it, work with them.

I’ve got to give Cruz credit, though, for outhustling Trump — the hustler in chief of this year’s GOP primary campaign — in obtaining committed delegates. Cruz’s team comprises political pros and veterans who know how to work the system established by the party. Trump’s team, until just recently, has been lacking in that kind of experience.

However, if Trump intends to “bring the party together” should he be nominated, he’s got to learn — as if he thinks he can learn anything — that you don’t accuse the guy who runs your political party of being a political crook.

You want unity? Trump might consider working more behind the scenes, quietly and with discretion, with the chairman. He also might consider tamping down the fiery rhetoric that keeps pouring out of his mouth.

That’s the tallest of orders. It would require the once-presumed GOP nominee to change the way he does business.

It won’t happen, which is OK with some of us out here.

I’m waiting anxiously for a fun-filled Republican convention in Cleveland.

 

Ryan settles it: He’s will not accept it

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I’ve been waiting for this declaration.

Today, it finally came from U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan, who declared that he will not accept the Republican Party’s presidential nomination if it’s offered to him.

There. It’s a done deal.

Ryan’s declaration spells out a gloomy prospect for the Republican Party. It’s going to nominate — more than likely — one of two men who hold tremendous negative ratings among rank-and-file voters.

Donald J. Trump will go to the GOP convention with more delegates than anyone else. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas will show up with the second-most delegate stash.

Neither of these fellows is going to defeat probable Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton, although surely their partisans will argue differently.

Ryan might have been able to rescue his party from what could turn out to be an electoral landslide loss. He’d bobbed, weaved, dodged and danced all over the question about whether he’d be open to a draft at the convention in Cleveland, Ohio.

“Count me out,” he said today. The convention should nominate someone who “actually ran for the job,” he said.

Don’t misread my intention here.

I don’t think Paul Ryan should become the next president. I voted against the ticket on which he ran in 2012 as the VP nominee with GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

It would have been a fascinating development in the extreme, though, to see whether the convention could turn to him as a sort of political savior.

It won’t happen.

Now the party is left with a sour choice.

RNC chairman warns Trump of ‘consequences’

RNC chair

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.

Listen up, Donald.

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.

 

 

 

Trump might be ready to retaliate

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Donald J. Trump more or less laid down the predicate for his candidacy when he announced it this past summer.

The Republican Party had better treat me nicely, he said, or else I’m going to make life miserable for the political brass.

I cannot help but wonder today if that prophecy is about to come true.

Trump and the other two surviving GOP presidential candidates are taking back their pledge to support the party nominee — no matter who it happens to be. Ted Cruz went back on his pledge, presuming the nominee is Trump; so did John Kasich, for the same reason.

Trump has more delegates than any other candidate. He’s in the best position as the primary campaign heads into its second half.

What happens, though, if he gets to Cleveland with a commanding delegate lead, but is still short of majority he needs to win the nomination on the first ballot outright?

This is where it might get real nasty for the Republican Party high command, which already detests the idea of Trump carrying the party banner into battle against the Democratic Party nominee.

Trump said he wanted to be treated “fairly” at the convention. I’m guessing by “fairly” he means that he gets his way. The other candidates would drop out and release their delegates to back Trump. He well might demand that the Republican National Committee insist that the others drop out. If it doesn’t, well, then what?

Trump then might have to decide if he’s going to carry through with his threat to run as an independent, which would guarantee the Democrats keep the White House.

What happens if he stays within his newfound party home, captures the nomination and then goes on to get blown out by the other party’s candidate who, I am going to presume, will be Hillary Rodham Clinton? You know as well as I know that Clinton’s camp is going to be loaded with ammo with which to launch a heavy barrage against Trump.

No matter which course Trump takes between now and the convention, the road ahead for the Republican Party appears to be strewn with land mines, sink holes, booby traps, crocs in the swamp … you name it.

I’ll hand it to the party’s presumptive nominee.

He gave the country — and his party — fair warning.

 

Memo to GOP: You don’t want to anger Trump

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Donald Trump’s latest shot across the bow of the Republican Party leadership leaves me with decidedly mixed feelings.

He again has refused to rule out categorically an independent run for president if he doesn’t get the GOP nomination next summer.

He wants fair treatment by the party. He wants to be treated, I gather, with respect.

Well, if I were to advise Republican National Chairman Reince Priebus, I’d tell him to be very nice to Trump. Treat him right. Baby the fellow. Tell him constantly how bright he is and how right he is … on everything.

I’m not sure what Trump means by insisting on fair treatment by the GOP.

Suppose he shows up in Cleveland next summer without the party presidential nomination locked up. Suppose another candidate has the delegate count in the bag. I’m guessing Trump will want a prime-time slot to make his speech.

Based on what we’ve heard so far along the campaign trail, such a concession could blow up in the chairman’s face. You’ve heard Trump, yes? He tends to, uh, ramble a bit. He says some rather insulting things about world leaders, his fellow politicians and tends to shoot from the hip on, oh, just about any subject under the sun.

However, does the party want to deny him that chance and risk having him bolt the GOP and launch that independent candidacy, which surely is going to siphon off more votes from the Republican nominee than from whomever the Democrats nominate?

Chairman Priebus, I reckon this is why the party pays you the big bucks.