Thread: If Trump doesn't understand 156-year-old rules, how will he understand the presidency

If Trump doesn't understand 156-year-old rules, how will he understand the presidency?

By Erick Erickson
Published April 11, 2016 FoxNews.com


NOW PLAYINGHow can Donald Trump get to 1,237 delegates?
Editor's note: The following column originally appeared in The Resurgent.

Donald Trump is again complaining about the delegate rules of the Republican Party — delegate rules that have existed in various forms for 156 years.

In fact, the present delegate rules have not really changed in decades, requiring that the nominee of the party get a majority of the delegates of the party to be the party’s nominee.

Donald Trump entered the race knowing he would need 1,237 delegates. But the man who claims he surrounds himself with experts and top men to advise him on things surrounded himself with advisors who told him not to worry about the delegates. Now Trump is having to bring in new people to play the delegate game, which is an acknowledgement that the rule for a majority will not be waived.

But along the way, both Trump and his supporters have taken to whining incessantly about the majority requirement. Publicly they think it should be changed to a plurality, though neither the delegate rules nor the Electoral College rules will be changed from majority to plurality.

Just because Donald Trump has the most delegates does not mean he has a majority of delegates. The rules matter.

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That Trump has, for this long, surrounded himself with people who clearly failed to accurately advise him on the delegate rules is troubling. We know that Trump’s foreign affairs advisors are not really top men and, frankly, some are staggeringly unqualified. Likewise, we know Trump has barely met with them.

But these are the people he’d take advice from on foreign policy. Trump, though, says he has a very smart brain and he consults with himself. On "Meet the Press" Sunday, his campaign surrogate said it was Trump himself running the campaign — a campaign that ignored 156 years of needing delegates.

If Donald Trump cracks over a 156 year tradition of requiring a majority of delegates for the Republican nomination how is he going to understand the demands of the presidency? If Trump claims he surrounds himself with top men and those top men advised him so poorly on the delegate issue, how can we be reassured he won’t make the same mistakes in a presidential administration?

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/...l?intcmp=hpbt2

Donald Trump already understands the Presidency, better than any candidate to run for this office in my lifetime. He gets the Presidency, which is why he is using his campaign to show the people why we're in the mess we're in. Rules created and decided by the very people causing all the problems aren't rules that are in the best interest of our nation or citizens. Trump will win the nomination because he'll get the most votes which will win him the most delegates.

Trump is highlighting through his campaign the serious problem in our party system that uses strange rules to empower the very people destroying our nation. What Trump is doing is a good thing for our country and citizens, because after all, like all the other issues identified and brought to fore by Donald Trump, party insiders have proven themselves to be a problem, not a solution.

One would have thought from all of Ted Cruz's rhetoric, he and his followers understood that. Gee, I guess not. Instead he's using party insiders to try to win a nomination through them instead of the voters.

Golly, why am I not surprised?

"demands of the presidency" really means demands of the globalists, corporations and the establishment. Grrrr!

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• OPINION: If Trump doesn't understand 156-year-old rules, how will he understand the presidency?
• COMPLETE CAMPAIGN 2016 COVERAGE

As Trump targets GOP process, speculation swirls around alternative candidates

Published April 11, 2016 FoxNews.com

NOW PLAYINGTrump slams 'corrupt' GOP nomination process
As Donald Trump ratchets up his complaints about the Republican nominating process — one he enthusiastically joined last June — the uncertainty in the tightening battle between him and Ted Cruz is kicking up renewed speculation about the possibility of alternative candidates entering the fray.

The latest name surfacing as a late-entry 2016 presidential bid is retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, former commander of Central Command. The Daily Beastpublished a lengthy report last week on an effort by a group of conservative billionaire donors to convince Mattis to consider an independent run.

According to the report, nearly a dozen donors are ready to back Mattis financially, and already are working with political operatives to draft strategy memos – which apparently have been delivered to the colorful and blunt-spoken retired general himself.

Mattis, though, recently told The Daily Caller the speculation is “just idle talk.”

Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg also recently flirted with mounting an independent bid, only to decide against it in the end. Former GOP nominee Mitt Romney, too, decided more than a year ago against running this time around despite insider pressure, though his very public anti-Trump efforts have kept him in the political public eye. Libertarian and other third-party candidates like former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson continue to float their own names as alternatives in November for disaffected voters.

Then there’s House Speaker Paul Ryan, who says he’s not interested in being the GOP nominee but is frequently floated as someone who could be a consensus pick at the July convention.

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The New York Times reported over the weekend on Ryan’s efforts staying in the public eye, including a video set to “campaign-style music” bemoaning the state of politics.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said last week that speculation surrounding Ryan is “natural,” calling him one of the “great leaders” on Capitol Hill who brings both sides together.

However, it’s one thing for someone like Mattis to mount an independent run. It’s another for Republicans to nominate at their convention a politician who did not compete in the primaries and caucuses – a move that could sow discord in the party nationally and with voters who backed both Trump and Cruz in the nominating process so far. Trump also has repeatedly threatened to mount an independent bid of his own.

Further, a big hurdle to Paul Ryan or any other outside figure would be a 2012-era rule that states a candidate for the nomination must get the support of a majority of delegates in at least eight states.

The rule could be changed -- but unless it is, it would appear to rule out the consideration of outside candidates, or even Ohio Gov. John Kasich if he doesn’t go on a winning streak soon.




Some analysts say despite the chatter about a non-candidate swooping in to secure the nomination in Cleveland, the party will ultimately have to choose between Trump and Cruz, who by far have won the most delegates. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich recently argued there’s no chance Trump or Cruz would allow convention rules to be changed so someone else can be considered.

Mattis has actually batted down the chatter about a possible independent run for months. Last year, he told the Marine Corps Times it’s “time for younger people, especially veterans, to run for office.”

But no amount of pushback appears to be quieting that speculation. John Noonan, a former Jeb Bush aide involved in the draft Mattis effort, recently tweeted that Mattis “can save us from Trump—and Clinton.”

Meanwhile, the Trump campaign has been railing against the complex delegate allocation process that Cruz’s campaign lately has dominated. Most recently in Colorado, the Cruz campaign swept the state’s 34 delegates. The state did not hold a traditional primary or caucus but a state convention to determine delegates. Cruz succeeded in getting his allies on the delegate slate.

Speaking to thousands in western New York, Trump argued anew that the person who wins the most votes in the primary process should be the GOP nominee.

"What they're trying to do is subvert the movement with crooked shenanigans," Trump said.

Trump senior policy adviser Stephen Miller told Fox News on Monday that Cruz effectively won a “voter-less” election.

“Cruz performs better with party insiders. Trump performs better with voters,” he said.

Despite the complaints, Cruz came out ahead in Colorado after dedicating resources to the convention process and putting in personal face time on the day of the final vote, something Trump did not do. On Twitter, the Colorado GOP retweeted a message, saying: “You may not like CO's caucus system, but it's representative, and claiming delegates were 'stolen' insults the Republicans who participated.”

Cruz spokeswoman Catherine Frazier also retweeted a message saying the rules “were publicly available for months to people who know how to read and understand words.”

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016...l?intcmp=hpbt1

Trump senior policy adviser Stephen Miller told Fox News on Monday that Cruz effectively won a “voter-less” election.

“Cruz performs better with party insiders. Trump performs better with voters,” he said.

Yes, he does, and that's one of the many major differences between these two candidates and the reason Trump is winning with the voters.

How many people registered as Republicans understand the rules of the Republican Party? Do they understand that their vote in the primary elections don't win them anything but a "delegate"? How many registered Republicans would there be if they understood the rules the way that Cruz and his cronies do?

This is all about the state run primary system. All those tax dollars spent to run a nomination election for political parties and the voters aren't even getting what they think they are getting.

What about the Democrats? Are they running the same racket? Get rid of the state run primary system. Force the voters to confront the internal politics of their political parties. Make the political parties run their own elections. It's the Information Age, it's not the same world it was when the Two Party System first crawled out from under a rock.

Originally Posted by pkskyali

. . . Make the political parties run their own elections. . .

That's the problem now.
Each party has different rules for each state.
Some have primaries some have a caucus,
with different rules everywhere.
The federal government needs to step in and run all elections with the same rules for everyone so that everyone knows what is going on.

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

That's the problem now.
Each party has different rules for each state.
Some have primaries some have a caucus,
with different rules everywhere.
The federal government needs to step in and run all elections with the same rules for everyone so that everyone knows what is going on.

No, absolutely not. It is none of the government's business how political parties run their affairs. If political parties don't want to run elections at all to pick a nominee, then they have every right to do that. The slimy Republicans who are tripping up Trump are not violating any laws, you notice. They are not doing anything that is violating anyone's constitutional rights. Trump is being victimized, but he volunteered to subject himself to the authority of the Republican Party.

The reason that the rules are different everywhere is because the federal government does not have the right to regulate primary elections. In fact no part of any government has the right or legal obligation to run the primary elections. The primary elections are run by the states, because running elections is something that functions at the state level, not because there is some constitutional obligation to run them. And because the political parties have no legal obligation to abide by the results of the elections, all the states can run the primaries differently, or not at all.

If we get rid of the primaries altogether, then the political parties will be able to clean up their internal laws and deal with their membership more directly. And by removing party affiliation from public records, we can get rid of the rot on our state and local government created by the Two Party System. No more gerrymandering. No more party cronyism. No more political party machines in government.

Outlaw the collection of party affiliation for purposes of voter registration and this will all end. There will be no more political primaries anywhere.

I like the primary system, but I grew up in a midwest state that had an actual primary, and yes we had these delegates who went to the convention and voted at the convention the way the voters voted with some extras for the winner. I have no problem with the primary system, I like people going to the polls to vote for the nominee. What I didn't understand ever at any time was that the delegates could nix out the voters who voted for the winner. Yes, the losers delegates can and should jump on board with the winner on the second ballot. But the winner's delegates should never jump on board with a loser.

Who would want to do that? It makes no sense, it defies all logic. It's a losing proposition.

This system is not right. Every state should have a primary and the nominee is the one who wins the most votes in the most states and that's how it should be throughout the country for every state and territory for the Presidential election.

We also need to get rid of the electoral college. It no longer holds any value, at all of any kind.

Add it to the list of things to get rid of so we can clean up this mess.