Thread: Let Me Ask America a Question

Let Me Ask America a Question

How has the ‘system’ been working out for you and your family? No wonder voters demand change.

By DONALD J. TRUMP

April 14, 2016 7:18 p.m. ET

On Saturday, April 9, Colorado had an “election” without voters. Delegates were chosen on behalf of a presidential nominee, yet the people of Colorado were not able to cast their ballots to say which nominee they preferred.

A planned vote had been canceled. And one million Republicans in Colorado were sidelined.

In recent days, something all too predictable has happened: Politicians furiously defended the system. “These are the rules,” we were told over and over again. If the “rules” can be used to block Coloradans from voting on whether they want better trade deals, or stronger borders, or an end to special-interest vote-buying in Congress—well, that’s just the system and we should embrace it.

Let me ask America a question: How has the “system” been working out for you and your family?

I, for one, am not interested in defending a system that for decades has served the interest of political parties at the expense of the people. Members of the club—the consultants, the pollsters, the politicians, the pundits and the special interests—grow rich and powerful while the American people grow poorer and more isolated.

No one forced anyone to cancel the vote in Colorado. Political insiders made a choice to cancel it. And it was the wrong choice.
Responsible leaders should be shocked by the idea that party officials can simply cancel elections in America if they don’t like what the voters may decide.

The only antidote to decades of ruinous rule by a small handful of elites is a bold infusion of popular will. On every major issue affecting this country, the people are right and the governing elite are wrong. The elites are wrong on taxes, on the size of government, on trade, on immigration, on foreign policy.

Why should we trust the people who have made every wrong decision to substitute their will for America’s will in this presidential election?

Here, I part ways with Sen. Ted Cruz.

Mr. Cruz has toured the country bragging about his voterless victory in Colorado. For a man who styles himself as a warrior against the establishment (you wouldn’t know it from his list of donors and endorsers), you’d think he would be demanding a vote for Coloradans. Instead, Mr. Cruz is celebrating their disenfranchisement.

Likewise, Mr. Cruz loudly boasts every time party insiders disenfranchise voters in a congressional district by appointing delegates who will vote the opposite of the expressed will of the people who live in that district.

That’s because Mr. Cruz has no democratic path to the nomination. He has been mathematically eliminated by the voters.

While I am self-funding, Mr. Cruz rakes in millions from special interests. Yet despite his financial advantage, Mr. Cruz has won only three primaries outside his home state and trails me by two million votes—a gap that will soon explode even wider. Mr. Cruz loses when people actually get to cast ballots. Voter disenfranchisement is not merely part of the Cruz strategy—it is the Cruz strategy.
The great irony of this campaign is that the “Washington cartel” that Mr. Cruz rails against is the very group he is relying upon in his voter-nullification scheme.

My campaign strategy is to win with the voters. Ted Cruz’s campaign strategy is to win despite them.

What we are seeing now is not a proper use of the rules, but a flagrant abuse of the rules. Delegates are supposed to reflect the decisions of voters, but the system is being rigged by party operatives with “double-agent” delegates who reject the decision of voters.
The American people can have no faith in such a system. It must be reformed.

Just as I have said that I will reform our unfair trade, immigration and economic policies that have also been rigged against Americans, so too will I work closely with the chairman of the Republican National Committee and top GOP officials to reform our election policies. Together, we will restore the faith—and the franchise—of the American people.

We must leave no doubt that voters, not donors, choose the nominee.

How have we gotten to the point where politicians defend a rigged delegate-selection process with more passion than they have ever defended America’s borders?

Perhaps it is because politicians care more about securing their private club than about securing their country.

My campaign will, of course, battle for every last delegate. We will work within the system that exists now, while fighting to have it reformed in the future. But we will do it the right way. My campaign will seek maximum transparency, maximum representation and maximum voter participation.

We will run a campaign based on empowering voters, not sidelining them.

Let us take inspiration from patriotic Colorado citizens who have banded together in protest. Let us make Colorado a rallying cry on behalf of all the forgotten people whose desperate pleas have for decades fallen on the deaf ears and closed eyes of our rulers in Washington, D.C.

The political insiders have had their way for a long time. Let 2016 be remembered as the year the American people finally got theirs.

Mr. Trump is a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/let-me-a...ion-1460675882

Oh wow!! Wonderful article. Thank you Donald J Trump, thank you, thank you, thank you.

And thank you Wall Street Journal for publishing the article. Thank you very very much.

STAY TRUE!! STAY TRUMP!!

Originally Posted by Newmexican

....

Just as I have said that I will reform our unfair trade, immigration and economic policies that have also been rigged against Americans, so too will I work closely with the chairman of the Republican National Committee and top GOP officials to reform our election policies. Together, we will restore the faith—and the franchise—of the American people.

We must leave no doubt that voters, not donors, choose the nominee.

....

And the way to do that is for the Republican Party run its own ballot system and run its own direct election system to nominate its candidates. Step away from the state run primary election system and run a mail-in or on line voting system of its own that employs a rigorous member ship criteria. No party hopping. No state run party registration rolls. Let the Republican Party supervise and insure the integrity of its membership. No more RINOs.

If the Republican party completely removes itself from the nationwide state run primary election system, I will register with the Republican Party run party rolls, abide by its rules and participate as a party member. But only if the Republican Party no longer relies on state run voter registration rolls to determine its membership throughout the US.

We need a National ID with fingerprint implemented and in place for the 2020 election. With solid proof you are a legal US Citizen.

All driver's licenses issued to undocumented non-citizens need to be deemed "null and void" and taken away. They are here illegally and should not be driving our roads!

Trump likely to win West Virginia but lose delegates

An arcane ballot process, complex rules and even the alphabet threaten to hold Trump back.

By Kyle Cheney
04/16/16 07:24 AM EDT

Donald Trump has a new enemy in the fight for national convention delegates: the alphabet.

Trump is well-positioned for a resounding victory in West Virginia’s May 10 primary, but his win will be accompanied by a delegate selection process stacked in favor of people with last names at the beginning of the alphabet — rather than his most committed supporters.

It’s a quirk of West Virginia’s mind-bogglingly complex delegate election process that has the Trump campaign on red alert and seems likely to leave the mogul with weaker support at the national convention than he’s expected to earn in the state’s primary. It’s yet another convoluted primary system likely to add fuel to Trump’s complaints that the rules of the Republican nomination process are rigged.

“Not even Einstein could easily understand the selection process today,” said Mike Stuart, a former West Virginia Republican Party head and chairman of Trump’s campaign in the state.

“The delegate selection system is intentionally complicated, making it extremely hard for voters to control the commitment of delegates to any particular candidate,” Stuart said. “I think the selection process for delegates in West Virginia not only is bad. It may be the worst in the country.”

It’s also bad for Trump because even if he wins the popular vote in a landslide, how that support translates into delegates depends on his supporters’ ability to navigate a complicated, arcane and confusing voting system — the results of which are an open question.

West Virginia's Republican ballot is a six-page form that places the delegate elections behind dozens of state legislative and county races. Some voters, West Virginia GOP insiders said, stop voting before they make it to the delegates. But getting there is the easy part.

More than 220 people are running for 22 statewide slots as convention delegates. On the ballot, they’re divided based on the candidates they support and then listed alphabetically. There are 31 for Trump, 36 for Cruz and 10 for John Kasich, who failed to file a full slate of delegates. A fourth list includes 27 “uncommitted” candidates, and there are also lists of would-be delegates for candidates who have already dropped out.

Voters wishing to select a full slate of Trump delegates can choose up to 22 of them -- though if they inadvertently select 23 or more, all of their choices are thrown out. They must also be aware of a new rule to prohibit more than two delegates from residing in a single county -- and seven from a single Congressional district -- a stipulation that isn’t mentioned on the ballot.

Yet nine of the first 22 names on Trump’s list are from populous Kanawha County, where Charleston, the state capital, is located. And if Trump voters pick them all, seven would be automatically disqualified and replaced by delegates who fit the criteria.

“Unfortunately, this will be a very random process with so many candidates for so few spots,” said Bob Miller, Jr., an uncommitted contender.

Traditionally, voters have simply selected the first 22 names associated with the candidate they support -- and previous delegations have been heavy with surnames starting with A through C as a result.

“It’s really luck of the draw,” said Bob Adams, a Cruz supporter running to become a statewide delegate. “I’m the very first Cruz delegate that anyone in the state will see on the ballot.”

Stuart said the Trump campaign has a legal team ready to contest questionable results and will work overtime to ensure that voters know which Trump delegate candidates to back when they go to the polls.

Frustration is mounting in part because Trump’s allies are so bullish about his prospects in the West Virginia primary. The state’s coal-powered 3rd Congressional district is the heart of Appalachia, abutting counties in Kentucky, Virginia and Ohio that voted overwhelmingly for Trump in earlier primaries. The only recent public poll last month showed Trump with double the support of his closest rival, Ted Cruz.

Interviews and emails with more than 40 delegate candidates and West Virginia Republican leaders reveal a widespread belief that Trump is poised for a big win in the state, which supported Mitt Romney in the 2012 GOP primary and Mike Huckabee in 2008.

“The landscape in West Virginia is pretty heavily Trump,” said Ron Walters, a Trump backer who’s running to become a delegate from the state’s 2nd Congressional District. “My best guess tells me somewhere around 28 of the 34 will be Trump delegates.”

Indeed, West Virginia is shaping up to be Trump’s strongest state in a potentially bleak May, when Midwestern states like Indiana and Nebraska threaten to deliver a truckload of delegates to Cruz, his top rival for the GOP nomination. But if West Virginia’s onerous delegate process leaves Trump with less support than he earns, it lowers his odds of winning the nomination on a first vote at the convention and complicates his chances on a second.

This year, a new restriction that isn’t mentioned on the ballot could cause even greater turmoil for Trump. State Republicans decided to require geographic diversity among delegates — no more than seven statewide delegates may hail from a single Congressional district, and no more than two can come from a single county. Yet the first 22 names on Trump’s list include nine from populous Kanawha County. If voters follow traditional patterns, seven of them would be ineligible to go to the convention.

While Trump is at the mercy of a difficult ballot list, Cruz has installed a failsafe: he has recruited candidates with widespread name recognition.

“As an elected official and former Congressional candidate my name is relatively well known especially within the district,” said Marty Gearhart, who’s running to be a Cruz delegate from the state’s 3rd Congressional District., thus I think I have a good chance of being elected. I have been a delegate to the last two conventions.”

Among Cruz’s top allies is Alex Mooney, the Congressman from the Second Congressional District, who chairs Cruz’s West Virginia campaign. Mooney is running for a statewide delegate slot and will be the 24th name on the pro-Cruz list. Cruz also has support from the state’s national GOP committeewoman Melody Potter, one of three automatic delegates.

And Cruz’s backers aren’t all ready to cede the statewide contest to Trump, though most acknowledge Trump’s strength in coal country. Cruz held a fundraiser in West Virginia last month sponsored by Murray Energy, and West Virginia’s increasingly conservative lean has many voters there pining for a candidate they consider a “Constitutional conservative.”

“My case for Ted Cruz is you can absolutely trust the guy to stick to his conservative values,” Mooney said in a phone interview.

Even Cruz, however, faces difficulties due to the ballot’s complexities. His first 22 delegates are more evenly dispersed, though he too would lose five delegates for the same geographic restrictions.

That could open the door for a handful of “uncommitted” delegates – such as state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey – to make it to the convention. Recognizing that possibility, Stuart, Trump’s campaign chairman, is pleading with those uncommitted candidates to pledge support to the winner of the popular vote on May 10. So far, he’s had some luck.

“[I] will support whoever wins the WV popular vote,” said former state Republican Party chairman Douglas McKinney, an uncommitted delegate candidate, in an email.

“As uncommitted I will most likely follow what/who WV wants. I am as conservative as Cruz, but fed up as Trump,” said Kathie Hess Crouse, a candidate from Putnam County, in an email.

But a handful of uncommitted candidates expressed clear preferences. Dan Casto, for example, said he’s “firmly in the #neverTrump” camp. Kasich appears poised to pick up some support, too, from the “uncommitted” pool.

Miller said he’s leaning Kasich, and so did former state legislative candidate Bill Bell.

“I am an ‘undecided’ that will never support Donald Trump,” said Tally Reed, a pharmacist. “I have never run for a delegate position before nor have I been to a National Convention. If it comes down to Trump or Cruz, I will vote for Cruz … My preference would be Governor Kasich.”

Kris Warner, the state’s national GOP committeeman, says he’s undecided in the presidential contest, but he noted that Trump’s apparent mishandling of the delegate recruitment process could open the door to a Cruz comeback -- he sees Trump scoring no more than 20 of the state’s 34 delegates.

He also noted that a deep conservative strain that’s growing in West Virginia is reflected by its leaders’ support for Cruz. “Melody Potter and Congressman Mooney are excellent representatives of the people of West Virginia. By nature, we are a conservative lot. Our faith and family are very important to us,” he said.

It’s unclear if Trump or Cruz intends to campaign in West Virginia over the next month, but supporters of both candidates said personal visits could actually sway votes.

“I think that would make a big difference in West Virginia if a candidate actually took the time to come here and campaign,” said Laura Hayes-Shiflett, a Cruz delegate candidate.

Cruz’s supporters, who saw Trump rage against the Republican establishment after losing the delegate battle in Colorado, are bracing themselves for more complaints if West Virginia’s unusual delegate selection process ends up disadvantaging him.

“It’s blaming the refs for the game after you lose,” said Mooney. “This is just the system we have.”

But Stuart, the Trump campaign chairman, said West Virginia’s delegate selection process has needed reforming for years and that they’re “designed to maintain the status quo.”

“We could well be in post-election in West Virginia a period of serious examination of ballots and voting,” he said. “It’s not an anti-Trump rule. It’s just a bad way to select a president.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/0...legates-222036