b********n
发帖数: 38600 | | b********n
发帖数: 38600 | 2 MARCH
The Hunt for Double Agents
On Saturday morning, while the candidates were scattered across Ohio and
Florida, Illinois and Missouri, Cruz’s campaign was back in Iowa trying to
wring another victory out of the state that gave him the first win of the
primary season. After Iowa Republicans caucused on Feb. 1, diehards who
stuck around their precinct got the chance to elect a local delegate to the
county convention. It was those 1,681 precinct delegates who attended
conventions in each of Iowa’s 99 counties this weekend, where they selected
from among themselves the delegates to subsequent conventions at
congressional-district and state levels. Cruz’s victory awarded him eight
of the state’s 30 delegates—Trump and Rubio each got seven—but his
campaign saw that as a beginning rather than an end.
In many states, primaries and caucuses are just the most public face-off in
a multi-step process to select the individual delegates who will choose the
party’s nominee. Only a small share of the 2,472 total convention delegates
are free to pick the candidate of their choice, regardless of the election
’s outcome, on the first ballot, while about three-quarters of them are
gradually freed to do so on subsequent votes. That means there is a small
pool of so-called unbound delegates who are pure free agents, but a much
larger number who can be recruited throughout the spring as double agents—
delegates who arrive in Cleveland pledged to Trump, all the while working in
cahoots with one of his opponents and confessing their true allegiances
once it is safe to do so.
APRIL
Reports of the Party Boss’s Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated
It has become fashionable to renounce the term “brokered convention” with
the argument that, as strategist Stuart Stevens has said, “there aren't any
brokers.” There may no longer be the handful of national leaders able, as
their early 20th Century predecessors did, to settle multi-ballot convention
battles in smoke-filled hotel suites.
But delegate selection is still an internal party matter, and in state
capitals the Republican establishment holds unusual sway. In those states
with a Republican governor, the state party is typically a fiefdom of the
executive controlled through a chosen chair.
During the nominating season, this often means a governor can freely stack
an at-large slate with cronies, expecting a rubber-stamp from a subservient
party committee. In Iowa, where Governor Terry Branstad in 2014 helped to
reclaim the state party after an unexpected takeover from supporters of Ron
Paul, Republican officials actively discourage their rank-and-file from even
understanding how the state’s 18 at-large delegates will be selected.
Party bosses stand ready to gut some of Trump’s greatest primary-season
successes. He won every one of South Carolina’s 50 delegates, by finishing
first statewide and in each congressional district, but Trump is powerless
to fill that slate with his own people. “Whoever is chosen for national
delegate will have allegiance to the party establishment, and the party
establishment is never going to be fond of Donald Trump,” says a South
Carolina Republican insider.
MAY
The Art of the Deal
There is nothing in the RNC’s rules that prohibits delegates from cutting a
deal for their votes, and lawyers say it is unlikely that federal anti-
corruption laws would apply to convention horse-trading. (It is not clear
that even explicitly selling one’s vote for cash would be illegal.)
Every delegate and alternate is already paying for individual travel costs
to get to Cleveland. Most state parties tell delegates to expect to spend $3
,000 out of pocket on airfare, hotel and meals, and for some it could prove
an unexpected hardship. (Delegates are assigned hotels by state; some could
end up paying for the La Quinta Inn, others stuck with a bill from the Ritz-
Carlton.) As blogger Chris Ladd has noted, Trump’s slate in Illinois
contains “a food service manager from a juvenile detention center, a
daycare worker from a Christian School, an unemployed paralegal, a grocery
store warehouse manager, one brave advocate for urban chicken farming, a dog
breeder, and a guy who runs a bait shop.” Could some of them be tempted to
flip their votes if a generous campaign, super-PAC, or individual donor
picked up the costs of their week in Cleveland?
JUNE
The Disqualifying Round
If the primary calendar ends without any candidate emerging as its
presumptive nominee, all those responsibilities will remain with RNC
Chairman Reince Priebus. Thus far, Priebus has been docile toward Trump, who
early on made being treated equitably by the national party a precondition
for promising not to run as an independent in the general election. But if
Trump doesn’t finish with a clear majority of delegates, Priebus will face
immense pressure from party officials and donors to undermine him.
* * *
And there’s much, more in the full article at Bloomberg including how the
party could take the nomination at the convention in a series of procedural
maneuvers.
But perhaps Ted Cruz put it best when he said the following in Maine: “If
the Washington deal-makers try to steal the nomination from the people, I
think it would be a disaster. It would cause a revolt.”
It sure would. And make no mistake, Trump would be more than happy to lead
it. | m********g
发帖数: 10469 | | b********n
发帖数: 38600 | 4 Since the only way the Establishment loses is if Trump wins, then this will
be a viable outcome |
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