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Title: Anti-Donald Trump Forces See Convention Coup as Within Reach
Source:
The Wall Street Journal
URL Source: http://www.wsj.com/articles/anti-do ... oup-as-within-reach-1467839099
Published: Jul 7, 2016
Author: Reid J. Epstein
Post Date: 2016-07-07 15:55:59 by Stoner
Keywords: None
Views: 2179
Comments: 22
Anti-Trump delegates think a coup is within reach at the upcoming GOP convention. A WSJ survey shows that Donald Trump’s intraparty foes are waging an intense effort to push for a vote on freeing delegates to back whomever they wish. Here’s how that might work. Photo: AP. By Reid J. Epstein Updated July 6, 2016 10:30 p.m. ET 1869 COMMENTS
Months after Donald Trump appeared to seal the Republican nomination for president, anti-Trump forces are making one last push to force a vote on the party’s convention floor that would throw open the GOP contest again.
It’s a long shot, but by some counts they are remarkably close to getting past the first hurdle next week in Cleveland.
Mr. Trump’s intraparty foes, led by a group of rogue delegates, are waging an intense behind-the-scenes effort to push the Republican National Convention’s Rules Committee for a vote on freeing delegates to back whomever they wish, rather than being bound to Mr. Trump.
The presumptive nominee’s team is fighting back just as vehemently, with an organized campaign of dozens of aides and volunteers. It’s a power struggle that has prompted threats of reprisals and left many Republicans anxious that it could hurt the party’s prospects in November.
The anti-Trump camp needs the backing of 28, or one-quarter, of 112 Convention Rules Committee members to place the issue before the full convention. A Wall Street Journal survey suggests it could be close.
In interviews, 20 members said they are willing to consider allowing delegates to be unbound, while 59 support Mr. Trump. The other 33 panelists couldn’t be reached or didn’t respond to repeated messages.
Others counting votes have their own tallies. Internal surveys of the Rules Committee conducted by RNC member Randy Evans of Georgia, who is trying to help Mr. Trump fend off the insurrection, found at least 18 committee members open to voting to unbind. The Trump campaign’s count shows about 15 leaning toward unbinding, according to people familiar with the campaign. Read More on Capital Journal
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Kendal Unruh, a Colorado teacher on the committee leading part of the anti-Trump movement, said she has private commitments from more than 30 committee members, but that many aren’t willing to admit so publicly.
All involved in counting votes say those numbers fluctuate day-to-day. If the provision gets the necessary committee votes when the panel meets beginning next Wednesday, it would place the issue before the convention, where it would need 1,237 votes—half the delegates—to pass.
Though a majority of the convention delegates are bound to support Mr. Trump, Mr. Evans’s count shows just about 890 delegates are personally loyal to the New Yorker. Another 680 oppose Mr. Trump. That leaves 900 delegates who are presumed to be “in play,” he said. The stop-Trump forces would have to take nearly two-thirds of them to block his nomination.
A Trump campaign official described Mr. Evans’s figures as “wildly inaccurate” and said Mr. Trump would win any floor vote at the convention.
Pushing the measure to the floor would create chaos, with the party delegates fighting over a nomination long viewed as settled in full display of the international news media. With such enormous stakes, members of the committee, including Graham Hunt, an insurance salesman from Orting, Wash., are the focus of a heated behind-the-scenes lobbying effort from both camps.
“It’s intensifying,” Mr. Hunt said one recent day at 9:30 a.m. “I have 83 emails already today.” On average, he gets more than 200 emails a day from unbinding proponents along with several daily phone calls from Mr. Trump’s campaign staff. A small group of GOP delegates are fueling a movement to unseat Donald Trump at the Republican National Convention in July. Shelby Holliday explains their plan in WSJ's Campaign Fight Club. Photo: Getty Images
Mr. Trump, who for nearly a year ignored the nuts and bolts of securing delegate slots, realized such a fight was brewing in March when The Wall Street Journal reported he garnered fewer delegates in Louisiana than primary rival Ted Cruz, even though Mr. Trump won more of the state’s votes. He hired longtime Republican operative Paul Manafort, who led President Gerald Ford’s whip operation in 1976.
Mr. Trump is confident he will prevail.
“It’s ridiculous. We won more votes than any other Republican, we won 38 states and now they want to try to” take it away, he said in an interview last week. “No one is even writing about it anymore.”
Yet every day last week, Mr. Hunt received a phone call, and on some days several, from a Trump campaign aide or surrogate seeking to win him over to their camp.
What would it take for the former state lawmaker to back the New York businessman, Mr. Trump’s allies ask, or at least to come out in opposition to the effort to unbind delegates?
“Verbatim, they said, ‘Let me ask you, what would make Donald Trump a better candidate in your opinion? We want to know because we’re going to send this up to the campaign,’ ” said Mr. Hunt, who led Mr. Cruz’s campaign in Washington state.
He remains offended at Mr. Trump’s July 2015 assertion that Sen. John McCain is “not a war hero” because he was captured during the Vietnam War, Mr. Hunt tells them. He also offered suggestions about specific policy proposals to help war veterans. A Trump aide told Mr. Hunt they would seek to add his suggestions to the party’s official platform.
“Actions will be sufficient and we’re not there yet,” Mr. Hunt said.
Some delegates report receiving veiled threats. One said a Trump surrogate called to say she was being monitored closely, a message she viewed as an attempt at intimidation.
Mike Stuart, Mr. Trump’s state co-chairman from West Virginia who is a member of the Rules Committee, said he would ask the panel to issue a formal reprimand of anti-Trump Republicans such as Mrs. Unruh and Mitt Romney, the 2012 GOP presidential nominee who has been a strident voice against Mr. Trump.
“I would support consideration of sanctions against established Republicans who work to undermine our nominee,” Mr. Stuart said.
An aide to the 2012 GOP nominee declined to comment for this article. He hasn’t said if he believes delegates should be unbound.
Mrs. Unruh and many of her allies see Mr. Trump as a historically bad nominee who would doom fellow Republians. In addition, they are arguing that Mr. Trump’s team shouldn’t fear one final test of his popularity from the party’s delegates. A power struggle involving presumptive nominee Donald Trump, shown earlier this year, has prompted threats of reprisals and left many Republicans anxious that it could hurt the party’s prospects in November. ENLARGE A power struggle involving presumptive nominee Donald Trump, shown earlier this year, has prompted threats of reprisals and left many Republicans anxious that it could hurt the party’s prospects in November. Photo: John Minchillo/Associated Press
“If we are a party of liberty, what are we afraid of?” wrote Gina Blanchard-Reed, of Washington state, in an email to her fellow Rules Committee members. “What are we unwilling to do? Does it mean that Donald Trump would be denied the nomination? Possibly. Possibly not. He would come out of the Convention stronger if he won the nomination as a result of a FREE WILL vote.”
The Trump campaign is preparing for some nightmare scenarios if the opposition gets close to the 28 votes it needs. One fear is that Utah Sen. Mike Lee, who has been critical of Mr. Trump and is the highest-profile Rules Committee member, urges votes in favor of unbinding delegates. Mr. Lee, whose wife is also on the committee, hasn’t revealed his opinion on the binding question to Mrs. Unruh, the Trump campaign or RNC members and declined to do so in an interview.
Some establishment Republicans are pushing against the unbind movement. Wisconsin’s Steve King and Mary Buestrin, both of the RNC and Rules Committee, wrote Friday to panel committee members that those behind the unbinding effort “are asking you to disenfranchise the votes of our family members, friends and neighbors.” Mr. King is the longtime chairman of House Speaker Paul Ryan’s campaigns.
Art Wittich, a Montana state legislator on the committee, is undecided on unbinding but is troubled that the effort hasn’t presented an alternative candidate who could plausibly be nominated from the convention floor, he said.
“My question is, if you get what you want, then what?” Mr. Wittich said. “Nobody can really answer that.”
IMHO, these anti Trummp people are insane. They are mis reading the tea leaves. With the whole country upset about the deal with Shitlery, and these clowns want to run the risk of Shitlery getting the White House ? If they continue their quest, and aid Shitlery and thereby put the well being of the nation at risk, they may be putting their health at risk !
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If they succeed, Hillary is the next President. Hell, I'll go vote for her, just to bounce the rubble. If you're going to be corrupt and crappy, demonstrate your power by doing it. She did.
Cheating Trump out of a nomination he won is a small-town clown-car act that deserves to be repaid by a Clinton dictatorship.
Nope. The choice is Trump or Clinton. Period. No do overs. No changes. You choose Trump, or you choose Clinton. Lots of Republicans have said that they won't vote for Trump. Some have said they will vote for Clinton.
So be it. If they succeed, then we get Clinton, and everything that means for them. I'll do just fine under Hillary Clinton.
#2. To: Stoner, Jimmy Carter Republicans, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson (#0)
hired longtime Republican operative Paul Manafort, who led President Gerald Ford’s whip operation in 1976
Trump loves the way that Manafort whipped Jimiah Carter into the White House.
If he could do it for Carter in '76, then he can do it for Hillary Rodham-Clinton in '16!
The preferred GOP Cleveland Plan is to replace Trump with Marco Rubio & Ben Carson. Carson will pull in the Ted Cruz evangelical delegates.
You're a racist if you don't love it!
"We (government) need to do a lot less, a lot sooner" ~Ron Paul#3. To: Stoner (#0)
It’s a long shot, but by some counts they are remarkably close to getting past the first hurdle next week in Cleveland.
I wonder how long a shot it is. I still can't believe the rnc puts him on the ballot.
But then, I still don't believe hildebeest is a viable candidate.
There are three kinds of people in the world: those that can add and those that can't
#4. To: Vicomte13 (#1)
The choice is Trump or Clinton.
The choice of this blue-stater is to vote for the Constituion Party.
A government strong enough to impose your standards is strong enough to ban them.
#5. To: Stoner (#0)
Mr. Trump is confident he will prevail.“It’s ridiculous. We won more votes than any other Republican, we won 38 states and now they want to try to” take it away, he said in an interview last week. “No one is even writing about it anymore.”
Blustering past the graveyard.
A government strong enough to impose your standards is strong enough to ban them.
#6. To: ConservingFreedom (#4)
The choice of this blue-stater is to vote for the Constituion Party
As is your right.
Hillary Clinton's FBI will come for your guns.
#7. To: Vicomte13 (#6)
Hillary Clinton's FBI will come for your guns.
No less likely if she wins my state by 800,000 votes rather than 800,001.
A government strong enough to impose your standards is strong enough to ban them.
#8. To: ConservingFreedom (#7)
No less likely if she wins my state by 800,000 votes rather than 800,001.
True enough.
#9. To: hondo68 (#2)
Who is the lady in the photo ? Jimmah sure seems infatuated.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
Those who beat their swords into plowshares will plow for those who don't
Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.
if you look around, we have gone so far down the the rat hole, the almighty is going to have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah, if we don't have a judgement come down on us.
President Obama is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people. --Clint Eastwood
"I am concerned for the security of our great nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within." -- General Douglas MacArthur
#10. To: Vicomte13, Stoner (#1)
If they succeed, Hillary is the next President.
Yes sir!
Its amazing pubs will not vote and let the dims win with the absolutely worst candidate over and over again but dims always vote for their candidate no matter if its a lying sack of murderous garbage. No wonder right of center people keep losing ground to progressive shits!
#11. To: Stoner (#0)
These assclowns never shut up. Trump beat them like a constitution party member beats his little peter thinking about hillary getting naked for them.
#12. To: calcon (#11)
" Trump beat them like a constitution party member beats his little peter thinking about hillary getting naked for them. "
Oh gag, how revolting!
Now I need a new lap top, I just spewed soda all over the screen & keyboard!
Si vis pacem, para bellum
Those who beat their swords into plowshares will plow for those who don't
Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.
if you look around, we have gone so far down the the rat hole, the almighty is going to have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah, if we don't have a judgement come down on us.
President Obama is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people. --Clint Eastwood
"I am concerned for the security of our great nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within." -- General Douglas MacArthur
#13. To: Justified (#10)
Progressives may be shits, but they are disciplined shits who have a proper understanding of their own relative weakness. They don't think they are so important that they can stand alone, and so they clump together, tolerating everything from every other faction of their coalition as long as they get their own rice bowl filled.
That's the way that armies win wars, and that's why progressives win at politics: they fight the political war as an army, they stay unified, they insist on their one main issue and compromise on everything else.
Republicans and conservatives run around like a herd of self-important cats, so CERTAIN of their moral rectitude, on everything, that they all hate each other and barely cooperate. Then the party apparatus work for the guys with money, who hire them, and they whip themselves into a frenzy about the "Ebil Debbil Dems!" And then they lose.
They lose, and they erect monuments to their lost causes, and content themselves with the thought that they fought dem debbils.
It's sad. But in the end, I've seen the cycle played over and over again so many times that I've accepted that they're just not going to win, because they're not willing to pay the price necessary to win.
Which is why I no longer get exercised about Democrats. It's like being one of those Brits who walks around raging about the Royal Family. You just have to say "They're there to stay, so give it a rest, mate."
#14. To: Stoner, hondo68 (#12)
Trump beat them like a constitution party member beats his little peter thinking about hillary getting naked for them. "Oh gag, how revolting!
You know it's true stoner, hondo68 got all excited walking by a sofa at wal mart, remained him of one of hillary pant suits.
#15. To: calcon (#14)
" hondo68 got all excited walking by a sofa at wal mart, remained him of one of hillary pant suits. "
LOL !!
Si vis pacem, para bellum
Those who beat their swords into plowshares will plow for those who don't
Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.
if you look around, we have gone so far down the the rat hole, the almighty is going to have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah, if we don't have a judgement come down on us.
President Obama is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people. --Clint Eastwood
"I am concerned for the security of our great nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within." -- General Douglas MacArthur
#16. To: calcon, Dreaming of Hillary (#11)
little peter thinking about hillary getting naked
You wuz hacked! Dang, that's a horrible nightmare.
"We (government) need to do a lot less, a lot sooner" ~Ron Paul#17. To: Stoner (#9)
Who is the lady in the photo ?
Something or the other.., Sunshine. She was a Trump employee, a well connected real estate agent/property manager in NYC.
She arranged for Donald to meet Carter.
"We (government) need to do a lot less, a lot sooner" ~Ron Paul#18. To: hondo68 (#17)
OK, thanks for the info. I just thought it was funny how Jimmah is leering at her. I guess Rosalynn was not there.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
Those who beat their swords into plowshares will plow for those who don't
Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.
if you look around, we have gone so far down the the rat hole, the almighty is going to have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah, if we don't have a judgement come down on us.
President Obama is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people. --Clint Eastwood
"I am concerned for the security of our great nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within." -- General Douglas MacArthur
#19. To: Stoner (#0)
IMHO, these anti Trummp people are insane.
I hear Jeb! is showing up at the convention and performing a strip-tease that he learned from the Libertarian political party.
#20. To: Stoner (#0)
The presumptive nominee’s team is fighting back just as vehemently, with an organized campaign of dozens of aides and volunteers. It’s a power struggle that has prompted threats of reprisals and left many Republicans anxious that it could hurt the party’s prospects in November.
I tend to doubt there would be a Republican party if this happened.
My wife an I have dropped out, but most of my family and friends are still Rs. But, not if Donald is not nominated.
Elected and unelected Bureaucrats, leeches, and cockroaches are all part of the same family in the animal kingdom.
#21. To: BobCeleste (#20)
" I tend to doubt there would be a Republican party if this happened. "
I think that is right.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
Those who beat their swords into plowshares will plow for those who don't
Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.
if you look around, we have gone so far down the the rat hole, the almighty is going to have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah, if we don't have a judgement come down on us.
President Obama is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people. --Clint Eastwood
"I am concerned for the security of our great nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within." -- General Douglas MacArthur
#22. To: buckeroo (#19)
" I hear Jeb! is showing up at the convention and performing a strip-tease that he learned from the Libertarian political party. "
I sure hope I miss that. Gag !!
Si vis pacem, para bellum
Those who beat their swords into plowshares will plow for those who don't
Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.
if you look around, we have gone so far down the the rat hole, the almighty is going to have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah, if we don't have a judgement come down on us.
President Obama is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people. --Clint Eastwood
"I am concerned for the security of our great nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within." -- General Douglas MacArthur
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