Trump

If you're following the news, you know that there are those in the GOP leadership who are maneuvering for either a brokered or a contested convention, which may occur if no candidate has a majority of the delegates. In a brokered convention, candidates will wheel and deal, offering all sorts of political favors to other candidates and delegates in return for their vote. This is how Vice Presidential candidates and cabinet officers are sometimes chosen. Many states give their delegate positions to politically connected people within the party, many of which are afraid that Trump will change the cozy arrangements they may have with the Party. Before we entered Bizarro World, delegates from most states were pledged to a specific candidate, so a delegate who didn't favor Trump would nevertheless have to enter Trump into nomination on the first ballot. In some states, delegates can vote however they please, regardless of the primary choices made by their state. However, in 2012 the Republican National Committee passed a rule that allowed the RNC to change the rules whenever they want, and some members of the RNC are saying that they are going to allow all delegates to vote for whomever they please on the first ballot.

Conventionally, if no candidate has a majority of the votes on the first ballot, delegates are free to vote however they please on subsequent ballots. So, as an example, let's use Florida, which is a winner take all state. Since Trump won the majority of votes in the Florida primary, you might think that Florida's 99 delegates would all be pledged to vote for Trump. Depending on the RNC, they may or may not have to do that on the first ballot. After the first ballot, they can vote whomever they please. Rubio came in second, and Rubio was the favorite among the leadership of the Florida Republican Party. But since he dropped out, the leadership might favor Cruz over Trump, since Trump threatens to upset their apple cart. On a second ballot, these delegates might cast all of their votes for Ted Cruz despite the fact that Cruz garnered only 17% of the vote.

Other candidates, such as Rubio and Jeb Bush, who had earned some delegates before suspending their campaigns, and Kasich, who will probably not win any other states after Ohio, might decide to give their delegates to Ted Cruz, putting him over the top. Before we entered Bizarro World, they weren't supposed to be able to do that, but I am hearing talk now that the RNC might allow them to do that in order to stop Trump. So either Kasich or Rubio might make a deal with Cruz to give him their votes in return for a VP spot, a Supreme Court nomination, or a cabinet position. There are even ways in which they can make deals for money, such as to pay off their campaign debt.

Prior to entering Bizarro World, a candidate would be able to free his or her delegates, who would then be free to put any candidate into nomination regardless of who that candidate might be endorsing, but now I am hearing that the RNC might unilaterally allow candidates to trade delegates like commodities, and only because they want to stop Trump. They would change it back again in a moment if the candidate with the most votes were someone they wanted.

A contested convention is similar, except that they can turn to a candidate who hasn't even been running, such as Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan, who has already stated his interest in that.

One major problem is that the people who voted for the guy who came in with the most votes, yet was refused the nomination, are angered and unlikely to vote for the person who ends up getting the nomination, particularly if this is someone like John Kasich, who received very few votes, or Paul Ryan, who wasn't even running. Voters for other candidates may also be angry because they have, in effect, been disenfranchised. After having gone door to door, made telephone calls, and contributed money for their favorite candidate, their votes were simply ignored.

They may take it out on the entire Republican Party and either stay home on election day, vote for a Third Party candidate, or even vote for the candidate from the other major party, as a way of punishing the GOP. This is likely to affect congressional races as well, since these people now have a bad taste in their mouth for the Republican brand. So a contested or brokered convention could very easily result in Hillary Clinton taking office with a Democrat majority in both houses of congress.

This anger does not go away in a short time either, and I can attest to that. In the 2012 election, Ron Paul supporters were prepared for him not winning the nomination. However, he had won the majority in at least five states and according to the RNC rules that were in effect at the time, he had earned the right to have his name entered into nomination. Ron Paul won all twenty of Maine's delegates. These people, most of whom are friends of mine, had to pay their own way to Tampa, including the very expensive room rates in Tampa during a Republican National Convention, in order to enter Ron Paul's name into nomination.

Just before the Convention was to begin, the Rules Committee of the Republican National Committee, met in what may as well have been a smoke-filled room, and decided to change the rule to require a candidate to have won the majority of seven states rather than five, and they also replaced half of Maine's elected delegates with unelected delegates willing to pledge to Mitt Romney, as well as some of the Ron Paul delegates in Michigan and Iowa, I believe, all because they wanted to be able to say that Mitt Romney had been nominated unanimously.

The media refused to report on the furor which erupted. I've posted some of the videos so I won't go through that again, but the point in wanted to make was that these people, along with others who had been heavily involved in the Ron Paul campaign, were among the most active members of the Republican Party. Of the twenty national delegates that Maine sent to Tampa, some are taking no interest whatsoever in the primary elections this year, two are for Cruz, a few are for Trump, at least one is for Bernie Sanders, while the remainder will be voting for the Libertarian or Constitution Party candidates. Half of Maine's state GOP Committee members resigned from the Party, including its National Committeeman.

When the Party leadership elects to take such a step, it is not without repercussions, and the candidate they choose to be the nominee is unlikely to win the general election, and such an action effects congressional elections as well. The outcry can greatly effect the Party brand, leading to losses in subsequent elections as well. I believe the last successful candidate selected by a brokered convention was Abraham Lincoln in 1860, and his election was followed by a Civil War, and his reelection was followed by his assassination. It is a drastic step.

Here is a meme that I made about it.

 

CBS does a reasonably good job of explaining it here, but I don't think they realize how dirty it really is. What they don't take into account is the 2012 rule that allows the RNC to change the rules whenever they want, and that pretty much guarantees that there can be no adequate explanation as to how it works.

If Trump is able to 1,237 delegates or more, which is the majority of delegates, the RNC will have a pretty difficult time denying him the nomination, although it would still be technically possible.

That is why we had so many Republican candidates this year, since whatever delegates they were able to collect would be denied to Trump or Cruz, however it might have gone. That is also why Kasich is still in. Although he probably won't win any more states, and it's mathematically impossible for him to reach 1,237 delegates since there aren't that many left to be elected, he is in to collect a few, and make it more difficult for Trump to reach that magic number.

Ted Cruz is another matter. Originally, I don't believe that the GOP leadership wanted him to be their candidate either. When Jeb Bush flunked out, they put their money on Rubio. Now that it's between Trump and Cruz, we have seen Cruz making several moves to ingratiate himself with the Republican leadership in the hope of being their choice in a brokered election.

Mathematically, he can still reach the magic number but he'd have to win more than 60% of the remaining delegates and that is unlikely.

 

People like to say that Trump was not a serious candidate when he decided to run. If you haven't seen it already, I think you'll find this video to be interesting. It shows the progression of events that led to Donald Trump running for president, and if you weren't already familiar with Trump, you might enjoy seeing the younger version.

 

Actually, I think that bringing up these quotes only draws more attention , and sends people to read the thread, even if they can't add to it.
This serves to help validate the stated opinions, and make them more important. I think that a better way to deal with it is just to simply ignore what goes on elsewhere, and not bring any more attention to it.
That only serves their purpose, and not ours, as far as I can see.