Thread: Republican Party chairman defends delegate process rules as Donald Trump complains

Republican Party chairman defends delegate process rules as Donald Trump complains

Democratic candidates butt heads in New York as Republican rivals focus their sights on California's June primary.

• Reince Priebus pushes back against delegate process criticism
• Which celebrities support which candidates? Check out our graphic.
• Republican candidates already start eyeing a competitive race in California ahead of the June 7 primary
• Donald Trump says two of his children missed last month's deadline to register to vote in New York

9:41 A.M.REPORTING FROM NEW YORK CATHLEEN DECKER

With withering words, John Kasich denounces the political paths trod by Donald Trump and Ted Cruz



Ohio Gov. John Kasich offered a withering denunciation Tuesday of his fellow Republican presidential candidates, casting them as purveyors of political darkness who have distorted reality in pursuit of their own political success.

He did not mention New York businessman Donald Trump or Texas Sen. Ted Cruz by name, but their policies were included in a list of proposals that he said were exploiting anger and resentment in the GOP electorate.

Republican voters in the April 19 New York primary and the succeeding contests face “two paths,” he said.

“One choice is the path that exploits anger, encourages resentment, turns fear into hatred and divides people,” he said. “This path solves nothing. It demeans our history. It weakens our country and it cheapens each one of us. It has one beneficiary, and that is to the politician who speaks of it. Another path is the one America has been down before. It’s well-trod… but it’s also solid.”

Kasich mocked as simplistic the formulas put forth by Trump and Cruz to solve the nation’s problems.

“We’ve heard proposals to create a religious test for immigration, to target neighborhoods for surveillance, to deport 11.5 million people, to impose draconian tariffs which would crush trade and destroy American jobs,” he said.

“We heard proposals to drop out of NATO, abandon Europe… end defense partnerships in Asia and tell our Middle East allies that they have to go it alone. We’ve been offered hollow promises to impose a value-added tax and balance budgets through simple and whimsical cuts in waste, fraud and abuse.”

Kasich, who spoke before a Republican women’s group in Manhattan, won his home-state primary last month but has found little success elsewhere this election year. He is running second in New York, according to some polls, but it is a distant second to Trump. The biggest question in the Republican primary here is whether Trump will exceed 50% of the GOP vote, a status that would earn him more delegates than if he earns less than half of the vote.

Kasich’s argument is one that he has made in less bracing terms throughout the campaign, but his sunnier calls for a more civil discourse and more reasoned solutions have not met the dark sentiments coursing through the electorate this year.

He attempted Tuesday to reach out overtly to upset voters, reminding them that he had grown up in an old steel town in Pennsylvania “when if the wind blew the wrong way, people would be out of work.”

“It’s awful to feel that insecurity, to feel that circumstances are out of your control, to feel like nobody cares and all the institutions in our land have abandoned you,” he said. “But we Americans have overcome so many challenges.”

His fellow politicians have played on those fears for their benefit, he said.

“Just as an all-consuming fear of America in decline ends in visions of American destruction, the political strategy based on exploiting Americans instead of lifting them up inevitably leads to divisions, paranoia and promises that can never ever be fulfilled,” he said. “I say to you that this path of darkness is the antithesis of all that America has meant for 240 years.”

He reiterated his view that his experience as a member of Congress, where he worked to balance the budget, and his tenure as governor of Ohio, as the state rebounded from the economic crash, made him well-prepared for the presidency.

The test of his campaign, however, is two-fold: whether a more upbeat public disposition can sell in this tumultuous year, and whether the candidate with the fewest delegates can markedly change his odds this late in the primary contest.

For that, April 19 looms as a giant event.


http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/trailguide/la-na-trailguide-04122016-htmlstory.html

Reince Priebus, let me tell you something, the best thing you can do is stay in your office, stay off the phone, shut your mouth, and let Trump be Trump, and he'll take our party all the way to the White House. And if you don't know that by now, then I was 100% right to oppose your takeover of Michael Steele. Michael Steele is 5 times the person you are, 5 times the RNC leader you are, and 5 times the Republican you are. How dare you, you limited IQ squirrelly mealey-mouthed cheesehead run a takeover effort to remove Michael Steele as Chairman of the RNC? Someone who raised more money and won more elections than our party had won since forever, not to mention he was our first Black RNC Chairman?

So what we're seeing in this Presidential primary are the same kind of back-door stack the deck insider establishment shenanigans you pulled yourself to challenge Michael Steele. It's got your stinky stamp all over it, you moronic weasel. But this time, you aren't defeating a nice guy like Michael Steele, this time you're up against a Brick Powerhouse Hardball Player, named Donald J Trump.

But enjoy your little mis-perceived power ride, Reince. It'll be your last one, because Trump Supporters are going to run your ass back into the oblivion from whence you came and force you to stay there where you've proven you belong.

That's right, Reince, imagine a country led by Trump, a world led by Trump, and oh yes ... the Republican Party led by Trump. Trump fixing the borders, Trump fixing the bad trade deals, Trump balancing the budget, fixing the pot-holes and bridges, bringing our factories and jobs back home, running illegal aliens out of here, building the wall, getting black Americans their jobs back and the jobs they should have had all along, fixing education bumping us from 30 on the list of achievement to Number One in the world in education level but 30 on the expenditure list, fixing our health care system, becoming friends with Russia, getting rid of nuclear weapons, paying down the debt, raising wages and salaries by sheer demand, balancing our trade deficits, building fast trains and beautiful new airports, reducing poverty and Medicaid usage by 50% or more by sheer economic gain for the people that were on it but no longer qualify because they have jobs and aren't eligible any more?

Imagine it Reince. Oh yes, I can see you shuddering as I write. You and your gang of STOP TRUMP don't want to fix our country, you want the status quo that's driving US into a third world bankrupt debtor poverty-stricken hell hole.

You're not a Republican. None of these STOP TRUMP, NEVER TRUMP, ANYONE BUT TRUMP wicked witches and political witch doctors are Republicans. They're the complete opposite of what a Real Republican is. Donald Trump is the epitome of the Real Republican which is why you and they can't stand him.

Well, American Republicans love him. And if there is a God, he's going all the way to the White House to fix our country.