Tiny Group Of GOP Delegates Preparing To Fight Against Trump At Republican Convention
A small group of Republican delegates is apparently discussing yet another quixotic effort to deny Donald Trump the nomination.
The Washington Post reports that a small group of delegates to the Republican National Convention is engaged in what seems like yet another quixotic effort to deny Donald Trump the Republican Presidential Nomination:
Dozens of Republican convention delegates are hatching a new plan to block Donald Trump at this summer’s party meetings, in what has become the most organized effort so far to stop the businessman from becoming the GOP nominee.
The delegates are angered by Trump’s recent comments on gun control, his racial attacks on a federal judge and his sinking poll numbers. They are convinced that Trump is an insufficiently conservative candidate and believe they will find enough like-minded Republicans within the next month to change party rules and allow delegates to vote for whomever they want, regardless of who won their state caucus or primary.
The new campaign is being run by the only people who can actually make changes to party rules, rather than by pundits and media figures who have been pining for a Trump alternative. Many involved in the delegate-driven movement supported Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas in the primary but say they have no specific candidate in mind and are not taking cues from any of Trump’s vanquished opponents.
“This literally is an ‘Anybody but Trump’ movement,” said Kendal Unruh, a Republican delegate from Colorado who is leading the campaign. “Nobody has any idea who is going to step in and be the nominee, but we’re not worried about that. We’re just doing that job to make sure that he’s not the face of our party.”
The fresh wave of anti-Trump organizing comes as a growing number of Republicans have signaled that they will not support Trump for president. In addition, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), who is slated to chair the Republican National Convention next month in Cleveland, said in remarks released Friday that House Republicans should “follow their conscience” on whether to support Trump.
“The last thing I would do is tell anybody to do something that’s contrary to their conscience,”Ryan said in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” airing on Sunday.
Ryan has endorsed Trump. But his use of the word “conscience” could prove helpful to delegates organizing the anti-Trump campaign because they are pushing to pass a “conscience clause” that would unbind delegates and allow them to vote for whomever they want.
(…)
Delegates involved in the effort disagree, but their plans would require a high level of coordination among the thousands headed to Cleveland next month. Previous attempts to field a Trump opponent or to use convention rules to stop him have quickly fizzled, but the new push revives the possibility of a contested convention.
The campaign kicked off in earnest Thursday night on a conference call with at least 30 delegates from 15 states, according to multiple participants.
After weeks of fielding phone calls, emails and direct messages sent via Facebook and Twitter, Unruh is now partnered with Regina Thomson, another Colorado Republican delegate. They have recruited regional coordinators in Arizona, Iowa, Louisiana, Washington and other states.
Other top Republicans, including Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), said this week that they will not back Trump. Ohio Gov. John Kasich said that he’s not yet ready to support Trump. And Richard Armitage, a deputy secretary of state in George W. Bush’s administration who is close with other members of the party’s national security establishment, announced plans to vote for Democrat Hillary Clinton if Trump is nominated by Republicans.
Eric Minor, a GOP delegate from Washington state, said he felt compelled to join Unruh’s group because “I hear a lot of people saying, ‘Why doesn’t somebody do something about this?’ Well you know what, I’m one of the people who can. There’s only 2,400 of us. I’m going to reach out to us and see if there seems to be momentum for this. And if there is, we’ll see where it goes.”
The key word in this entire report, of course, is the first word of the first sentence in the first paragraph, dozens. Further on in the report, we find out that we’re talking about, at best 30 delegates who seem to be talking among each other about yet another attempt to deny Donald Trump a nomination that, by any measure, he has quite clearly earned according to the Rules of the Republican National Committee. I’ve lost count of how many reports of plots such as this there have been over the past months since it became apparent that Trump was marching virtually unopposed to a convention victory, but of all of them this one has got to be the weakest and the one that reveals quite starkly just how panicked Republicans are over the prospect of Donald Trump at the top of their ticket, something that has also manifested itself in a number of Republican officials running away from Trump to the point where it quickly seems to be becoming something of a stampede.
As for how something like this could be pulled off, as the Post reports indicates it would not be easy. Under the current rules, nearly all of the delegates that were assigned as a result of the primaries and caucuses are bound to the candidate that they were assigned to at least through the first ballot and in some cases through a hypothetical second or third ballot as well. The exceptions to this general rule come from a small portion of the delegates out of Pennsylvania and a handful of others. At most, this group of unbound delegates probably amount to no more than 50 to 100 delegates. The first thing this means is that it really doesn’t matter what this group of delegates, whether it amounts to 30 or 300, wants to do. At least on the first ballot, their vote would be counted as being cast for the candidate to whom they were pledged as a result of their states’ primary or caucus and there’s basically nothing they can do about that. Given the fact that Trump has more than enough delegates to win the nomination on the first ballot, then, the fact that 30 delegates are banding together to plot against him can mostly be dismissed as much ado about nothing.
The only way that a plan like this could be pulled off is if the rules for the convention were changed to completely obliterate the idea of pledged delegates or change the rules sufficiently to deny Trump a majority on the first ballot. That would require these “rebels” to (1) gain control of the Rules Committee of the RNC, (2) vote on and approve a new set of rules for the convention other than those already adopted at the 2012 Republican National Convention, and (3) get those changes approved by a majority of the delegates in Cleveland. Simply put, this is not going to happen. Most of the delegates that will make up the Rules Committee will be people loyal to Trump and party insiders who will be interested above all in avoiding an intra-party war on the floor with the entire world watching on television. Even attempting to pull off what I’ve outlined here will be perceived, rightly, as an attempt by party insiders to subvert the will of the voters and it would be as likely to doom the party for the next several election cycles as going forward with Trump and suffering what seems like an inevitable loss would. The difference is that, at least in theory, it would be easier for the party to recover from even a Goldwater style loss with Trump at the top of the ticket than it would be to recover from the kind of coup that this report is talking about.
Finally, as Allahpundit notes, the plan falls apart because it’s unlikely the party would be able to nominate someone who would be able to unify a fractured party:
In reality, the dump-Trumpers will need a lot more than 1,237 members on the floor if the party’s going to have a chance this fall to win with a new nominee. They could choose someone else as nominee via a bare majority, but the narrower the margin is, the more dubious ousting Trump will seem and the hotter the “civil war!” media coverage will be. Ideally, if you’re going to reject Trump and swap in a Scott Walker or whoever, you want a heavy majority of delegates in favor to signal some sort of broad party consensus that he’s disqualified himself. And I don’t think that’s possible. Too many delegates there will be Trump loyalists for anti-Trumpers to be able to assemble anything like a supermajority against him.
In other words, we’re talking about 30 delegates out of the more than 2,400 who will be on the floor in Cleveland trying to pull off something that has been tried, and failed, several times over the course of this election cycle, stop Donald Trump from becoming the Republican nominee. Given his poll numbers and utterly outrageous views it’s understandable why they’d want to do so, but in the end this latest plot is, as Shakespeare put it in another context, a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Donald Trump is the monster you created Republicans, and you’re stuck with him. There are a number of choices you can make as individuals because of that, but denying him the nomination at this late date after every other effort to do so has failed is not one of them.
In some ways, Trump’s nomination is not unusual.
At the end of the primary, the GOP usually winds up with one hard-core bible-thumping nutcase with a few hundred delegates, and a more moderate person with significantly more, who wins. In 2008 the last two were Huckabee and McCain, and McCain won. In 2012 it was Santorum and Romney, and Romney won. In 2016 it was Cruz and Trump, and Trump won.
This would be hilarious, if it weren’t so pathetic.
These idiots need to read their Emerson.
I wonder if they have big hands?
This time GOP, you did build this.
@Jenos Idanian:
That’s good advice on striking at a king. But what if you’re striking at a racist, misogynist nutcase? An imbecile with the maturity of a teething toddler? A rip-off artist, a reality TV huckster, a buffoon, a lazy, rancid, nasty wanna-be fascist?
@michael reynolds:
You get points for trying.
@michael reynolds: And somebody who learned his politics from Joe McCarthy’s sidekick Roy Cohn; see
http://tinyurl.com/hq97tcv
I love the smell of Republican civil war in the morning…
@michael reynolds: I thought a writer like you would understand the notion of “metaphor.”
Trump is powerful, and he has an established track record of remembering who crosses him. Making a purely token and symbolic and futile attempt to oppose him will achieve exactly nothing, and earn his enmity. If they can’t live by the rules they said they would, then they should forfeit their delegate status.
If they had even a slim chance of derailing Trump, then their actions would be courageous. Instead, they’re merely stupid. Worse, they are setting themselves up to be painted as “establishment tools out to thwart the will of the electorate,” and causing themselves serious long-term harm politically.
A lot of people like bringing up Hitler in relation to Trump, so I’ll go there. Imagine if, at some point in the 1930s, some Jewish activist had made a really, really, really pathetic attempt to kill Hitler that had zero chance of succeeding. Say he went by the Reich Chancellery, yelled “death to Hitler,” and fired a few shots at random windows. Just how much propaganda would the Nazis made from that action?
If you’re being driven to an action that only will not affect a cause you oppose, but actively assist it, then you aren’t acting from principle, you’re acting from ego. And stupidity.
A hat tip to Jenos for bringing up the simile of Trump to Hitler. I find it far better when their own recognize that a spade is a spade.
I especially liked this part… as I could picture a fanatical rant, yelled, with spittle flying along with the projected voice, straining to be heard:
But Jenos, when I read your description of Trump, it wasn’t Hitler that came to mind, but a failed egotistical paranoid leader like Nixon.
Too many of us Americans remember Nixon, and sadly for the GOP Your Trump doesn’t even hold a candle to the political skills of a Nixon.
Time will remember Mr. Trump with no more passing interest than three day old flattened roadkill on the highway, unidentifiable in form, except for some hair still sticking out.
And they will discuss the failed GOP with all the warmth as we do now of the Whig Party.
@Liberal Capitalist: Despite all your blather, I stand by my point: any serious attempt to deny Trump the nomination at this point damned well better succeed, because a failed attempt will strengthen him. The narrative he’s pushing is that the establishment is out to get him, and a pathetic attempt like this will only reinforce that.
We can only hope that any attempt will fail…the more he exposes himself, the more unpalatable and disgusting he appears, thus making it even harder for him to win anything in November…
Regardless of the outcome, there is no downside to opposing Trump. The shame and stink of supporting him or being to fearful to take a stand should stay with those losers and cowards forever. It should be even more pathetic than supporting W.
@Jenos Idanian: I have to say that other than
Trump is only powerful in relation to the people he has chosen to screw over, all significantly less wealthy than he and with much less access to the corridors of power. He could never succeed against an equal. In other words, he chooses his enemies well.
Other than that, I agree with everything else you said to one degree or another.
@OzarkHillbilly: The “enemies” in this case are a small group of delegates So they fit your criteria of “significantly less wealthy than he and with much less access to the corridors of power.”
I thought that was implicit in what I said, but apparently it was not.
But let’s not lose sight of the people Trump defeated to get the nomination. There were several who had better “access to the corridors of power,” and Trump beat them.
Trump has a term for those who have underestimated his political savvy. He calls them “losers,” and it’s a fair description — they lost to him.
@Jenos Idanian: I repeat: Trump chooses his enemies very well. This “deep bench” the GOP put up was as shallow as a roadside puddle and just as slimy. Trump knew the audience he was playing to as well. The new audience is not impressed.
Too bad he could not pick his DEM opponent too.
Funny how in saying I agreed with all that you said except for the one thing, basically that your new Emperor has no clothes, that is what you focus on. You really are just another voice in the worshipful crowd aren’t you? “My lord! What finery you wear, your Highness!”
You know, it’s funny. It’s only the #NeverTrump Republicans who are still trying to figure out ways to deny Trump the presidency with convention shenanigans. Valiant effort –I guess– but while they’re on Plan D, the anti-Trump movement outside the Republican Party is still on Plan A: Vote for someone else.
@OzarkHillbilly:
“Too bad he could not pick his DEM opponent too.”
He tried. And several of the regulars here believed the same swill as Trump was pushing.
@Jenos Idanian:
“any serious attempt to deny Trump the nomination at this point damned well better succeed, because a failed attempt will strengthen him. The narrative he’s pushing is that the establishment is out to get him, and a pathetic attempt like this will only reinforce that.”
Pretty much right, except that if this attempt is only a couple of dozen random delegates, with no actual national figures among them, it is more pathetic and less establishment. An attempt with a couple of hundred delegates would play into his hands better. Not enough to win, but enough that it gets taken seriously.
@michael reynolds:
In other words, a man who has everything it takes to be Jenos’ hero
@Liberal Capitalist:
Unless you are an old timer who followed politics back in the day, it’s largely forgotten that Nixon really did have a first class intellect, and was done in by his character flaws, not any lack of brainpower.
I doubt that the protesting delegates think that they will succeed at denying Trump the nomination. That isn’t the way to look at this.
What they might be able to do is set the tone for depressing Republican voter turnout by making it acceptable for Republicans to not vote for their nominee this time around. (This is essentially a “not in my name” argument; in essence, they are willing to give the presidency to Clinton by default while still claiming loyalty to the party.)
They may not be able to change the course of the convention. But in a best case scenario, they could contribute to deepening an electoral vote blowout, which they can then try to use later as a catalyst for reforming the party.
Now, I doubt that they can reform the party after 2016, as the bigot wing will simply blame the establishment for the November defeat. (These guys love to talk about accountability, just as long as they themselves aren’t accountable.) But reducing the odds of the GOP taking the White House in November would be good enough for now.
@anjin-san: In other words, a man who has everything it takes to be Jenos’ hero
It’s astonishing how far you are from having an effing clue. I’m thinking astronomical distances here.
I don’t think I have ever voted for a candidate because I strongly supported them. In nearly every case, it’s been a matter of “they’re the least worst” or “they are attacking the right people” or “the right people hate them.”
No, wait, I forgot the 2008 presidential primary. That was the one time I recall genuinely liking a candidate, and voting with pride. (They dropped out of the race shortly thereafter.) But apart from that — nothing.
Hell, there was a stretch when I liked the veep candidates better than the tops of the tickets (1996 and 2000). 1996 Gore hadn’t lost his Big Blue Marbles yet, Kemp was… well, Kemp, and Cheney and Lieberman seemed a hell of a lot better than Dubya and what Gore and devolved into.
The other day I saw a review of Hillary’s tenure as First Lady, and it brought back a whole lot of things I had forgotten. And all of that was before her time in the Senate (where she voted for the Iraq War) or her tenure as Secretary of State (where she oversaw our relations with China, Russia, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and led us into the Libyan civil war).
I’ll repeat my earlier opinion: I think that Trump has the potential to be a greater disaster than Hillary, but Hillary has the greater potential to be a disaster. Or, in other words, I give Trump a 90% chance of being a Level 10 disaster, while Hillary is 95% likely to be a level 9.5 disaster.
Also, Trump has more entertainment potential. A Hillary presidency would be incredibly uncomfortable to watch. If it’s all going down the crapper (and I think it will), I demand at least a few LOLs on the way down the drain.
@Jenos Idanian:
So you still have not caught on to the fact that the only person you fool is yourself?
🙂
Two articles over at The Hill and Politico (am too lazy to link to them) which I found hilarious:
Article One (The Hill): Trump supposedly doing “an emergency call” to raise $100K for media ads. So much for the “self-financing” gambit. Also, where’s the ad going to be shown? $100K gets you–as one wag put it–“the QVC channel at midnight in Montana”.
Article Two (Politico): Can Donald be bought out for $150M? Is this what La Donald is now thinking: “pay me enough money and I will go away”? Note: anyone who suggests that the Democratic Party will jump on board with this is crazy–the DLC LOVE Donald. He’s the looney-bird of all looney-birds. They love to watch the Republican Party running around in terror that yes indeed, this schmuck is going to be Our Candidate and he’s been shoved into position by Our Base, who will throw a veritable hissy fit if Our Donald isn’t Our Candidate.
As for me, my impression is that La Donald started his run for the lulz and the damn thing ran away with him. He was thinking that it was just going to be a little dipping of his toes in the political water, just enough to tweak up His Brand, and the next thing, whoops, the whole rocket took off and he’s now on the Chariot Ride From Hell. He’s now caught, like a cat on a revolving merry-go-round, and can’t figure how to get off without losing face and revealing to all the paper tiger he actually is.
And honestly, I have no inclination to help Trump out of his situation. Neither do the more sensible Republicans. They’re realizing that the only way for the Republican Party to survive this longterm is to let The Base have their head via Trump as their figurehead, go off the cliff, and totally demolish themselves. Fiat experientia, ruat coelum.
Kaine seems like a pretty good call. I think having two women on the ticket is a mistake, and Warren is in a position to do more good in the Senate than she would as VP. Kaine has a very solid record, a nice father figure thing going, and is more of a balancing figure than a polarizing one. Hillary can placate the left by making it clear Warren will have a strong voice in the administration, something I would like to see regardless of what the far left thinks.
That’s quite amusing coming from someone who cannot admit what a racist, xenophobic, misogynistic, grifting gasbag Donald Trump is…
@An Interested Party: who cannot admit what a racist, xenophobic, misogynistic, grifting gasbag Donald Trump is…
Go on. Since it’s so obvious, I’m sure you can say in precise detail examples of each specific. Just keep in mind a few inconvenient facts:
1) “Race” has a specific meaning, and “Mexican” and “Muslim” are not races.
2) As painful as it must be for you to admit, there are legal aliens and illegal aliens in this country. Be sure to cite at least one example where Trump has targeted both factions.
3) Trump’s motif is to say bad things about people, regardless of their race, sex, orientation, creed, color, political affiliation, or whatever. It’s how he rolls. So to qualify as “misoynistic,” please cite an example that meets the definition.
4) Grifting — I’ll give you that one. An element of that is part of his motif, too.
5) Gasbag — yeah, I’ll give you that one, too.
Newsflash, buttercup — calling people bad things doesn’t work like it used to. For way too long, your side got to get people to shut up if you called them racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, prejudiced, biased, haters, or whatever. Hell, every Republican nominee for decades has been Hitler. Enough people have finally figured out that crying wolf has been your go-to tactic, and have gotten bored with it. And you’re too lazy or limited to realize that it doesn’t work any more, and you need something new.
Yes, Trump’s a bad person. Yes, he’s got more baggage than Imelda Marcos. Yes, he has failures in his past. Yes, he says mean things about people. But here are two things I know, and you know, too, but can’t bring yourself to admit:
1) He’s no Hitler.
2) Hillary’s worse.
@Jenos Idanian:
No problem…
racist
xenophobe
misogynist
Oh, sweetheart, it isn’t about calling people bad things, rather, it is about Trump exposing himself by the bad things he says…
Oh really?
Please release my comments from moderation, thanks…
@An Interested Party: Here, let me paraphrase your comment that’s hung up in moderation: “You’re wrong, Trump is worse, and you’re a stupidhead for thinking he isn’t.”
Let me show that I can be more honest than you. Our argument boils down to me saying “vote Trump, because Hillary’s worse,” while yours is “vote Hillary, because Trump’s worse.” I’m more honest than you are, because I can openly say it; you can’t.
Wanna prove me wrong? I know you do. So make that case that Hillary is good. Make a pro-Hillary case that doesn’t mention Trump at all. Talk about her merits, her achievements, her character traits, her actions, that make her qualified to be a good president.
I’ll be waiting. But I won’t be holding my breath.
I’ll be tied up all day, so you have until this evening to come up with your answer. So don’t rush.
@Jenos Idanian: Oh, and I reserve my right to change my mind should circumstances compel it. So my half-hearted support of Trump is as of this moment, subject to change.
Has anybody created a pie filter for this site? It would really be useful.
A supporter’s explanation of what he thinks about Hillary
Pretty good.
Wrong again…you wanted examples that show that Trump is a racist, a xenophobe, and a misogynist and I provided them…very easily, I might add…
Doubtful, as you refuse to admit what a loathsome character Donald Trump is…
So very true…
@Jenos Idanian: ” So my half-hearted support of Trump is as of this moment, subject to change.”
Right. It’s just your abject, slobbering worship of the man that is eternal.
@An Interested Party: Sorry, I was busy all day dodging sniper fire in Tuzla, and since I only use one electronic device for commenting on blogs, I couldn’t comment before.
I took a brief look at your citations, and my first thought was that if observations from unhappy former subordinates is now the gold standard, have you heard about this book by someone who spent a LOT of time around First Lady Hillary?
Trump is bad, Hillary is worse.
@wr: Here, let me save you a whole lot of time and (for you) a whole lot of effort by paraphrasing your next 583 comments: “Jenos, you’re a racist and you have homoerotic feelings towards this other racist.”
There. Now you can go find something productive to do with your time. I suggest collecting your navel lint and knitting a nice sweater for yourself. It’s supposed to be a cold winter.
And yet, despite things like that, she’s still going to win….go ahead and say it…”Madam President”…
Nice try, sweetie, but those links mostly use Trump’s own words to show what he is…
@An Interested Party: What a stunning defense of Hillary: “nd yet, despite things like that, she’s still going to win.”
Trump’s badness is disqualifying, but Hillary’s badness is irrelevant. What a remarkably flexible set of principles you have. Rubber, latex, or some new space-age polymer?
It’s ok…you can be mad about what’s going to happen in November…we understand your pain…
Meanwhile, some more of Trump’s own words that show how toxic he is…
@An Interested Party: Yes, Trump is bad. But Hillary has a body count.
Hillary says that people who were once on the FBI watch list for terrorist ties shouldn’t be allowed guns (the FBI had dropped their investigation of the Florida shooter), but thinks that people actively under FBI criminal investigation for compromising national security should be president.
And if you liked Hillary’s work as Secretary of State (see Libya, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Russia, China, et al), you’ll LOVE her as president!