One of the things that seems to have never sunk in for Donald Trump’s GOP rivals (or at least until they were either sitting back at home on the couch reflecting on why they were beaten so badly or else talking sheepishly to reporters on Capitol Hill about their plans to retire from politics after being trounced in their home state) is that he feeds off of controversy and publicity. The more you talk about him - good or bad - the larger he looms in voters’ minds.
Although certainly adept at whipping crowds into a frenzy and clearly a much more savvy politician than probably even he suspected going into the campaign, the Trump juggernaut is to some extent a monster of the GOP field’s own making. The more they focused on Trump, the more voters did too, and before you knew it, he was the frontrunner. At that point, it became self-fulfilling - they had to focus on him because he was at the top of the polls.
But alas, they never learned. He was best left alone from the start to fizzle out or, more likely, to self-destruct of his own accord. Instead, by creating an “us versus him” dynamic, the other Republicans made an anti-establishment candidate out of a billionaire who probably didn’t even know what “anti-establishment” meant when he entered the race. Before you knew it, Trump was Mr. Anti-Washington and from that point forward he could do no wrong.
So oblivious to this are Republicans that they’re about to make the very same mistake with the GOP convention. If you were to have gathered an arena full of Trump voters in January and asked them to raise their hands if they could explain what a “contested convention” was, our guess is that you would have come up with a stadium full of full pockets.
But that’s not the case now. The media, the Republicans, the Democrats, indeed damn near everyone is talking about what strategies the GOP can employ in Cleveland to steal the nomination away from Trump. Well guess what? Just like that, everyone has virtually guaranteed that they’ll never be able to get away with it.
Now, Trump will make absolutely sure that his millions of rabid supporters know there’s a chance they may be effectively disenfranchised in July and thanks to the fact that America’s political establishment still hasn’t learned anything about why they’re losing to Trump, those same supporters will be able to turn on the nightly news and hear all about how the Republican party plans to screw them.
Indeed, CNN was gullible enough to actually ask Trump what he thought would happen if the nomination were stolen from him, effectively affording him an “inception” opportunity which he jumped on immediately by saying in as innocent a voice as he could muster, “I think there’d be riots.”
If there was any chance of pulling the wool over Trump’s eyes and duping his followers with backroom, old school politics in Cleveland, there sure as hell isn’t now. Just the same as if there was any chance of shutting down Trump’s campaign in the first GOP debate by effectively ignoring him and treating him as though he didn’t belong on stage, that chance was lost immediately when Fox’s Megyn Kelly made him a political star by asking him if he thought it was befitting of a President to call women “disgusting animals.”
It's been a comedy of errors on everyone's part but Trump's and now, by alerting the billionaire to just how real the threat of a convention coup truly is, he may actually end up turning the tables on them and stealing their delegates.
With that as the backdrop, we bring you the following excerpts from a Reuters piece out today entitled “Meet The Man Who Will Help Determine Trump’s Fate In 2016 Race.”
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From Reuters
Mark Strang spends his days delivering farm equipment, listening to politics on the radio during cross-country drives. But in July, the 63-year-old could have an outsized voice in choosing the Republican nominee for president of the United States.
For the first time in 40 years, Republicans could arrive at their national convention in Cleveland without a nominee. If front-runner Donald Trump fails to lock up the nomination before then, as some pollsters are predicting, Strang will have a chance to make history.
Strang, from Illinois, is one of 2,472 delegates to the convention who will ultimately determine the party's choice for the White House this November. In recent elections, the delegates have simply rubberstamped the presumptive nominee. But this year the convention could become a brutal fight in which every delegate vote will count.
If the convention becomes a fight because no candidate has the needed 1,237 delegates on the first round of voting, most of the delegates would eventually be released. States are still sorting through some rules governing how long delegates are bound to candidates. Strang said if he found himself a free agent, he would be open to switching his vote.
Interviews with Republican state party officials and some delegates who have already been selected reveal widespread soul-searching in anticipation of a potential fight. Officials and delegates described weighing their personal preference with the need to rally around a candidate going into the general election.
Party faithful are steeling themselves for a battle, not just for the nomination, but also for the party's core values.
A contested convention would pose a major test for Trump’s campaign, which thus far has eschewed a traditional grassroots organization. His rivals, Cruz and Ohio Governor John Kasich, are already trying to lobby delegates who might be open to changing sides once they are allowed to become free agents in the convention.
In every state, the party chair and two national committee members, a man and a woman, are automatically selected to be delegates. But from there, state parties use a wide variety of procedures to pick delegates, most of whom won’t be named until late spring or summer.
“These are the base of the party,” said Michigan Republican Party chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel. “The delegates are not the establishment. They are the base. And I think that’s a great misunderstanding.”
Often sporting outfits with homemade decorated hats or jackets weighed down with dozens of buttons, delegates who show up every four years include everyone from lawmakers to homemakers, and from those who write million dollar checks to retirees who make phone calls.
Many states use small conventions to pick delegates, many of whom are long-time party activists and elected office holders. Not all of them personally back the candidate they are pledged to support in the first round of convention voting, said Virginia Republican Party chairman John Whitbeck.
Jim Carns, a state representative from Alabama, where delegates are selected in the primaries, signed up to represent Trump last fall -- when many still viewed the rise of the New York real estate mogul as a temporary phenomenon.
He sees no circumstance in which he would switch candidates.
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Right. Jim Carns, who pledged himself to Trump last year wouldn't drop his support "under any circumstances."
And how about Mark Strang, the Cruz delegate? Well, let's go to Mark himself for the answer: "I am going to be loyal to Ted Cruz, and I will stick with him until I see if there’s no hope. And if there’s no hope for Ted getting in, as I understand it I can pledge my votes to somebody else, and I would hope Ted would understand."
We're sure he will Mark. We're sure he will.