Tag Archives: GOP convention

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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.

 

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GOP nomination fight becomes hazardous … for GOP

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This story just knocks me out.

U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker is a Mississippi Republican who heads the Senate’s GOP campaign committee.

His advice to senators facing tough re-election battles? Don’t go to Cleveland this summer for your party’s presidential nominating convention.

What in the world … ?

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/276910-gop-campaign-chief-to-vulnerables-stay-away-from-convention

U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona — the GOP’s 2008 presidential nominee — is staying away. Sens. Mark Kirk of Illinois and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire aren’t planning to go, either. And get this. Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, in whose state the convention will occur, isn’t sure he’s going to attend.

Does this say something about what lies ahead for the GOP combatants and the delegates who’ll select the next party nominee?

I’m wondering now if it means that the nomination for president of the United States will even be worth the fight.

What in the world is keeping all these folks away? It might the threat leveled by GOP candidate Donald J. Trump that there will be “riots” if the convention chooses someone else to be the nominee. Who wants to be a part of such a melee?

Chaos reigns supreme in this year’s GOP nominating fight.

Tonight, to be sure, Trump did take a big step toward securing the nomination by scoring the big win in the New York Republican primary. He’s still a ways away from getting the required delegates he’ll need to win the nomination on the first ballot.

If the fight goes to a second ballot or beyond, well, then the chaos is likely to erupt.

Meanwhile, the head of the Senate’s GOP campaign committee has issued fair warning to senators who might be in trouble: Stay away or you, too, may become a victim of the fallout.

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‘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.

 

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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.

 

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Wondering if Trump will bolt the party

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Peter Wehner doesn’t strike me as a wacked-out Republican loon.

He writes pretty well, if the essay in today’s New York Times is an indication.

The man is frightened at the prospect of Donald J. Trump becoming his party’s next presidential nominee. And he expresses that fear — right along with a lot of other Republican wise men and women — with profound eloquence.

Check out his essay here.

He says the Founders were afraid of people such as Trump. They feared strongmen rising to the top of the political heap. As he says in his NYT essay:

“The founders, knowing history and human nature, took great care to devise a system that would prevent demagogues and those with authoritarian tendencies from rising up in America. That system has been extraordinarily successful. We have never before faced the prospect of a political strongman becoming president.

“Until now.”

I’ve been reading and listening to a lot of commentary in recent weeks about the Republican strategies being devised to deny Trump the party nomination. And as I take it all in I remind myself of things Trump said earlier in this campaign about how he would respond if he’s treated badly at the GOP convention this summer.

He’s suggested, then recanted, and then suggested again that he might launch an independent bid for president if Republicans aren’t nice to him. He wants to be treated “fairly,” he has said.

If I were advising Trump, I’d be examining all these efforts to wrest the nomination from my guy and I would conclude: Hey, these guys flat-out don’t like Trump; they aren’t being nice, fair, even-handed … none of it.

If Trump is true to his word, that he wants fair treatment and would resort to other means to win the White House if he’s mistreated by his party moguls, then my strong hunch is that he might be cooking some plans to strike back at those Republican honchos.

After all, he’s already exhibited a serious mean streak all along the campaign trail so far.

Does anyone really think this fellow is incapable of creating maximum chaos?

And if you do believe he never in a million years would do anything to stick it in the GOP’s eye, check this out.

Then … get back to me.

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Political conventions: raucousness with serious purpose

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I won’t be attending either of this year’s political conventions.

Part of me wishes I could because — having been to three of them over the years — I’ve discovered how much fun they are for those who attend them and for those who report and comment on them.

This year’s Republican convention in Cleveland could be especially fun especially for the reporters lucky enough to get the assignment to cover it.

My first political convention was in 1988, when Republicans gathered in New Orleans.  I was part of the media team representing the Hearst Corp., which owned the Beaumont Enterprise, where I worked for nearly 11 years.

Any convention in The Big Easy was a serious blast, given that it’s, well, New Orleans.

Four years later, the Republicans gathered in Houston, about 85 miles in the other direction from Beaumont. That one produced its own share of memories. Chief among them was watching former President Reagan deliver his last major political speech in which he poked fun at the Democrats for nominating a young Arkansas governor who compared himself to Thomas Jefferson. “Well, I knew Thomas Jefferson,” the president said. “Thomas Jefferson was a friend of mine …” He brought down the house.

Four years ago, I had secured press credentials for the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte. I didn’t have the support of the Amarillo Globe-News or its parent company, Morris Communication. I applied for the credentials on my own and then received them. Then my world was turned upside-down when I got “reorganized” out of my job at the paper just as the convention was about to begin the following week.

I went to Charlotte anyway — with my wife; we enjoyed ourselves immensely. I attended the convention as a spectator and got to cheer as President Obama and Vice President Biden received their party’s nominations for re-election.

One of the major takeaways from all three events, though, is a visual one.

In New Orleans, Houston and Charlotte, I was struck by the sight of serious-minded men and women parading through the convention hall wearing goofy hats, festooned with campaign buttons, loud clothes, carrying signs — all while they shout slogans from the convention floor.

I had to remind myself of this fact: These people from all across the nation are gathered in one place to nominate a candidate for president of the United States of America. They are choosing the individual who will represent their political party in an election to determine who will be commander in chief of the world’s foremost military establishment; they will pick the head of state and government of the world’s greatest nation.

I’m telling you that when you are among these folks, it’s easy to forget the seriousness of the task they are seeking to complete.

This year — in Cleveland and in Philadelphia — it’ll be no different.

Except that in Cleveland, where Republicans are going to gather, the serious nature of their mission might be compromised by the individual who is poised to accept his party’s nomination as president.

 

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No mea culpa from Mitt, but still pretty powerful

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Mitt Romney didn’t take my advice.

He didn’t acknowledge his mistake in seeking Donald J. Trump’s endorsement for president in 2012. Still, despite what I had hoped he would say, the immediate past Republican Party presidential nominee did a fine job this morning of eviscerating the frontrunner for the party’s next presidential nomination.

Not that it’s sure to resonate with the legions of Trumpsters who’ve glommed on to the reality TV celebrity’s shtick, which is virtually what Romney has called the candidate’s political circus act.

The man is as phony as they come. He’s not one of us, the GOP elder said; he’s not even as astute a businessman as he portrays himself, Romney added. His domestic and tax policies would created a “prolonged recession,” and his foreign policy ideas would put the nation into grave danger around the world.

Trump lacks the temperament and the judgment to be the Leader of the Free World, said Romney.

There’s so much more to add. I won’t. just take a look at the link I’ve just attached to this blog.

At a couple of levels, the speech today was most extraordinary. Some pundits this morning called it “unprecedented” for a major party’s most recent presidential nominee to openly rebuke the presumed favorite to carry the party banner further.

Romney all but endorsed the idea of a deadlocked GOP convention this summer in Cleveland to enable the party to turn to someone other than Trump. Romney said voters in Florida should back Marco Rubio and those in Ohio should vote for John Kasich.

All of this begs another question: Would the party frontrunner chuck the whole thing if he can’t corral enough delegates to guarantee a first-ballot nomination?

Look at this way: He might think that since the party isn’t treating him nicely, he could decide to forgo the floor fight and then launch some kind of rogue independent bid in an effort to stick it to the party honchos who are working overtime to deny him the nomination.

It isn’t likely to happen. But you know … if this campaign has demonstrated anything it has shown us that not a single scenario is beyond the possible.

I am one who never would have thought — not in a bazillion years — that we’d have reached this point in a campaign for the presidency of the United States of America.

 

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Get ready for the battering, Mr. Trump

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There are times when my mind wanders into seriously weird flights of fancy imagination. This is one of those times.

Take the future of Donald J. Trump’s candidacy for president of the United States.

All the smart money today suggests that Trump’s Republican nomination campaign is going to take big leap forward once they count the ballots in the 12 Super Tuesday primary states.

The likely Democratic nominee figures to be Hillary Rodham Clinton.

We all know that the Clinton political machine is a formidable beast. It is well-funded, well-organized, well-tooled — and well-supplied with opposition research staffers who spend their waking hours digging up dirt on political foes.

Let’s play this out.

Suppose Trump captures the Republican nomination in Cleveland this summer and Clinton walks out of the Philly convention with her party’s nomination.

Then the battle will be joined.

Clinton’s public life has been pretty much an open book for, oh, the past 20-plus years, dating back to her husband’s first campaign for president. Trump’s public life? Not so much.

It figures to be opened gaping wide for all to see and hear.

The Republican Party hierarchy doesn’t trust Trump. They believe he’s a faux Republican. We’ve been exposed in Texas to a devastating 30-second TV ad that contains only Trump’s words in which he declares himself to be pro-choice on abortion, that he considers himself to be a Democrat, in favor of universal health care and in which he thinks Hillary Clinton is just a fantastic person.

On top of that, you need to watch a brilliant comedic put-down of Trump by John Oliver.

Here it is.

It’s long, but it’s hilarious. It also rings so very true.

And this kind of thing marks only the beginning of the evisceration that Trump will face if he secures the GOP presidential nomination.

Now let’s ponder another admittedly remotely possible outcome.

I cannot shake this very strange feeling that he really and truly doesn’t want to be exposed fully for the fraudulent circus-clown act that he is.

I’m going to wonder aloud now about whether Trump intends to take this fight all the way.

Just suppose this master of political theatrics does the unthinkable. He goes to the convention having taken all the battering that his so-called fellow Republicans have delivered.

Then he decides, “You know what? I don’t need this. I’m really wealthy. I have several beautiful homes. A gorgeous wife. I have all the creature comforts. I think I’ll just declare that I’m out. I’ll release my delegates. Maybe I’ll make an endorsement. And then I’ll go home.”

Wouldn’t it deliver the final blow to the GOP brass that has sought to take him down? He could toss the convention into utter chaos and leave it to that very same brass to figure out how to nominate a candidate. He could stick it straight into the party’s gut.

I cannot predict whether he’ll accrue enough delegates prior to the convention to secure the nomination. I also am not going to predict that the scenario I’ve just described actually will take place.

However, given the incredible twists, turns and gyrations this campaign that taken to date, nothing — not a single, solitary thing — would surprise me.

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The 2016 GOP presidential nominee will be . . .

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. . .  Speaker of the House Paul Ryan.

OK, I didn’t just make that up. I read about such a scenario in Roll Call, which has put together an analysis that makes a Ryan nomination a distinct possibility.

Ryan had to be dragged kicking and screaming — or so he would have us believe — into the race for House speaker after John Boehner quit abruptly this past autumn. Boehner had grown weary of fighting with the TEA Party insurgents within his House GOP caucus. So, he quit the top job and quit his congressional seat, too.

Ryan emerged as the speaker after laying down some rules for how he wanted to become the Man of the House. He stipulated that he wanted every Republican to want him to take the job.

So, how does this guy become the 2016 nominee?

Roll Call thinks the Republicans might get a brokered convention in Cleveland next summer. None of the candidates still running will have enough delegates to secure the nomination outright. A floor fight will ensue. Someone will come up with the idea that they need a unifying candidate.

Enter . . . Paul Ryan.

There’s one way to look at this: Ryan at one time wanted to be president. He was, after all, the 2012 GOP vice-presidential nominee on the ticket led by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. I’m going to presume that Ryan agreed that he could serve as president if by chance Romney got elected and something were to happen that would require Ryan to step into the top job.

It’s not beyond reason, thus, to believe Ryan still harbors latent presidential aspirations. Right? Right.

But apart from how Republican convention delegates settle this madhouse contest this summer, the very idea of a political convention actually being tossed into pandemonium intrigues the daylights out of me.

The closest a major-party nominating convention came to that level that I can remember was in 1976, when former California Gov. Ronald Reagan mounted a challenge to President Ford’s expected GOP nomination. The president prevailed, but only after some serious dickering on the convention floor.

Will this year’s Republican convention become the circus that the parties used to experience?

I hope so. It’s great political theater.

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

donald

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.