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politics and politicians Title: Tennessee GOP accused of removing Trump delegates It’s been over a month since the Tennessee GOP primary, which took place on March 1st, so one might imagine that the wrangling over their participation in the national convention in Cleveland would be well in our rear view mirror. One would be wrong. The final tallies produced Trump as the winner in that primary with roughly 39% of the vote, with both Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio also beating the state’s 20% threshold to qualify for delegates. That translates to a total of 33 delegates for Trump, 16 for Cruz and 9 for Rubio. Easy enough, right? Well.. not quite. Those are the numbers, but at the end of the voting we didn’t know all the names. The delegates assigned from each congressional district (3 each) were selected by the voters and they are all presumably dedicated to their candidates. But because of the strange way Tennessee (along with most of the other states) breaks up their delegate allocation, they only accounts for roughly 30 of them. The remaining 28 delegates, allocated based on the state-wide vote, are divided into two groups of 14 each. By the state party rules, those names are selected as follows: (emphasis added) So 14 of the names were determined by the primary election… all well and good. But then we come to the final 14 who are “appointed by the Executive Committee with the consent of the respective Presidential campaigns.” Those appointments took place yesterday. Trump, as the winner, was supposed to get seven of those delegates and his campaign submitted names for each slot. But when it came time for the final selection, things took a turn and the Trump people are not happy. Some of the names they submitted disappeared and were replaced by folks who are being described as distinctly “anti-Trump.” (The Tennessean) Morris said two of the pro-Trump at-large delegates supported by the campaign, but now taken off the list, are Republican state Sen. Bill Ketron, R-Murfreesboro, and Mark Winslow, former chief of staff of the Tennessee Republican Party. Both men were delegate candidates in the March 1 primary. Morris said Ketron is now slated to be an alternate delegate and that Winslow is no longer even on the list. For a selection process that was supposed to take place with the “consent” of the candidates, that sounds a bit off tone. I checked with some of the locals and got similar responses to these which were tweeted by state senator Frank Nicely. — Sen. Frank Niceley (@SenFrankNiceley) April 2, 2016 — Sen. Frank Niceley (@SenFrankNiceley) April 2, 2016 — Sen. Frank Niceley (@SenFrankNiceley) April 2, 2016 The standard line coming out of Tennessee seems to be that “all the rules were followed” and they are reminding everyone that Tennessee requires the delegates to vote for the candidate they are bound to on the first two ballots, so what’s the problem, right? Well, we’ve already heard that everyone is preparing for a convention which could go far deeper than that, with as many as a half dozen ballots possible. In fact the RNC is making detailed preparations for just such a possibility. So what kind of position will Donald Trump be in if, on the second or third ballot, a bunch of his delegates turn out to be people who are just waiting for the chance to bail out and support someone else during the horse trading which is predicted to take place? Let’s face it… even if this is all “according to the rules” this just looks bad. And it gives Trump’s voters all the excuse they need to claim that the game is rigged and bail out on the general election or even look at a third party run which will assure victory for the Democrats. We’ve already got Roger Stone promising “Days of Rage” in Cleveland over the perception of dirty dealing. Roger Stone, who left the Trump campaign in August, tweeted several times Friday evening about his plans, announcing a “Stop the Steal March on Cleveland” and calling on supporters to get to the city for the convention in July. This apparently is a situation which isn’t unique to Tennessee. There are hot spots around the country where the byzantine convention rules are in the spotlight. This weekend’s convention in North Dakota is already being described as a process of freezing out Donald Trump after the voters were given no voice in delegate selection. Colorado and Pennsylvania are already under similar scrutiny. And all of this is only the warm-up act to when the GOP rules committee meets prior to the convention in Cleveland. The media is focusing a spotlight on that process and will be watching like a hawk to see if the rules are shifted at the 11th hour in a way which makes it easier to shut The Donald out after a couple of ballots. It’s too late to talk about reforming the system this year because the cards are largely dealt already. But given the state of both the party and the nation as a whole these days, it’s not at all difficult to imagine these sorts of close, contentious races taking place in 2020 and beyond. There’s got to be some way to clean up the process and avoid a repeat of this soap opera. We can leave Trump, Cruz and all the rest out of the question and admit (I hope) that everyone who chooses to run should at least know the rules they are competing under before the game begins. In the meantime, I remain very concerned that the sort of tricks we’re seeing in Tennessee and other states will simply fuel the fires of resentment among a significant portion of Republican primary voters and create an easy glide path for the Democrats. None of this was much of an issue when we had relatively clear winners in place before heading to the convention, but those days may be at an end. Even if we’re “following the rules” in each case, it’s time to admit that the rules smell to high heaven and will continue to cause problems unless they can be cleaned up significantly. Poster Comment: Just a snapshot of how one state determines delegates. Also, Cruz scored commitments of 18 of 25 ND delegates yesterday. North Dakota does not vote for presidential primary candidates at all. They just select 25 unbound delegates. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 7.
#1. To: All (#0)
AoS was offering this today, seems to fit in with this story. CNN: North Dakota delegate hunt looks good for Cruz. Cruz's team, both surrogates and the candidate himself, put considerable effort into the ND GOP convention. His was the only camp to provide a list of delegates to support, neither Kasich nor Trump provided their supporters with one. Word is that Team Cruz landed 18 out of the 23 names they wanted. Congressman Kevin Cramer (Heritage scorecard: 48%) endorsed Trump and lobbied for delegates on his behalf. NBC: Trump, Cruz Work to Block Kasich From Ballot at Open Convention. "While Trump and Cruz are locked in a bitter battle, aides to both men tell msnbc it is in their mutual interest to keep Kasich off the ballot. The convention rules control who is on that ballot -- and thus eligible to win the nomination." Politico: "Sore-loser laws" will prevent Trump from running as third party if he doesn't win GOP nomination. "He doesn't have the option of running as a third-party [candidate]," the Texas senator told Wisconsin radio host Charlie Sykes. "Quite a few states across the country have what are called sore-loser laws, that once you run as a Republican and lose, you don't get to then turn around and file on the ballot as an independent, so that will not be an option available to him."
Wonder if Rand took his old Buddy Ted aside and offered some advice. Ron Paul supporters were very good at the delegate herding IIRC.
Cruz is a total political nerd, one of those student body president types. So he didn't need anyone to point this stuff out to him. He's probably been boning up on contested convention procedures since he was, like, 11 years old. Like Paul Ryan, who says he's read every federal budget every year, beginning to end, since his mid-teens. These guys are not your average kids.
Hasn't everyone?
#9. To: ConservingFreedom (#7)
All joking aside, Cruz really is that legal/political nerd, just as I described.
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