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The Hot Mess
Rules of the road:
- Don’t tug on Superman’s cape.
- Don’t spit into the wind.
- Don’t poke the mask off the old Lone Ranger.
- Don’t try to rationalize with a Trump supporter on Twitter*.
The Twittersphere is ablaze this morning with Trump supporters crying about the “stolen” election in Colorado, the “disenfranchisement” of a million Republicans and the general “not cool” factor surrounding their candidates inability to secure delegates to the national convention.
On both sides of the aisle the march to the conventions is a hot mess. The reason is that it is not a single process. Counting both parties it is a set of over 100 processes. Each state and territory has its own rules and its own way of selecting delegates.
“Hello, Democrats! Welcome to Chicago!” So said the signs put up by the Richard J. Daley Administration. The Welcoming Committee of the CPD greets visitors downtown.
In 1968 there were but 12 states that held primaries. The riots at the Democratic Convention in Chicago led both parties to “democratize” the selection process. But because it’s not really one system it’s grown more like a patch of weeds than grown like a garden. It has failed multiple times in the past and managed to nominate the unlikable and the unelectable, but it has never happened to both parties at the same time the way it has in 2016.
Trump, according to The Denver Post, didn’t even have a paid staffer on the ground in Colorado until last week. The man who promises to hire the best staff didn’t. Ted Cruz’s organization is running rings around him, particularly in states where the selection process is more fluid.
Unfortunately this tells us a lot about both The Donald and ourselves.
What is says about Trump is that he is totally unprepared. Somewhere along the line he decided that he could Tweet his way to the White House, that if he stamped and stomped and cried about “unfairness” he could alter the facts on the ground to suit him. This doesn’t work in politics and it sure doesn’t work in the dirty business of governing. If you’re not prepared to take on the Colorado GOP you’re not prepared to take on Putin, China or a flood of immigrants.
What is says about us is that we can’t have a majority of citizens come to the table only once every four years. The crowds of Bernie supporters and Trump supporters haven’t become armed mobs yet. But the operative word is “yet.”
He hires the best people. People who couldn’t deliver a single delegate. Who will come to Trump’s aid when foreign countries are treating him unfairly?
Trump got into this race on the basis that we are being run by Very. Stupid. People. and that no-one in Washington knows how to manage or build anything.
Like the current President, he believes that he is always the smartest person in the room. Therefore, all his supporters must be dumber than he is. So dumb that they wouldn’t even care if he committed murder, they would still support him.
He’s demonstrating now that he was not even smart enough to read the rule book before deciding to play the game. Or perhaps he’s demonstrating that he simply thought the rules would not apply to him.**
And now, rather than apply his vaunted deal making skills to a situation that ought to be tailor made for him, he’s whining and crying like the bully that he is.
Meanwhile, the ‘respected insider’ guy he has brought in to try to rescue him is well on his way to violating Godwin’s law.
**I have taken to wondering where many of Trump’s acolytes, who harp on the fact that he’s ‘winning’ the popular vote and therefore should be given the nomination whether he gets to 1237 or not, stood on the matter in 2000, when Gore won the popular vote, but Bush had more electoral college votes. Sean Hannity, I’m looking at you.
Yes, I sure am glad that I wasted my time as a delegate to the 2008 Colorado state Republican convention so that an ignoramus of monumental proportions could just sweep in and overwhelm the will of the accumulated votes of hundreds of caucuses, dozens of county assemblies and a state convention.
Oh, wait. That didn’t happen.
Trump is an ignorant bozo who is now doing the exact thing his surrogates accuse others of (in terms of “Gestapo Tactics”) because he’s either unable or unwilling to read party rules. “The best ILLITERATE people” is what he should have said.
God, I’m angry about this.
The smoke got the mirrors dirty in Colorado. Sorry Donie.
I’ve heard that trump has “yuge” and “bigly” deal making skills and that he will be able to “talk” his way out of said issues. Ya know, peace through deal making (sounds oddly like Barack and the Iran agreement).
I would like to hear from others to verify, but everything I’ve read last night and this morning indicates that the CO GOP operated according to rules that were in place and decisions made months before anything happened this weekend.
If I am understanding correctly the Cruz campaign read the rules and played very hard according to the rules.
Trump appears to have not read the rules and just assumed the reality schtick works everywhere.
What am I missing?
The rules in place were made in August 2015, long before anyone thought that Trump could/would get anywhere near the nomination.
Drudge had links up yesterday, implying that the rules were recent and made to thwart Trump. However, if you look at the date of the article (in small, pale gray font) you see that the article was written last August.
You have it correct.
August 2015 rules just let the party pick the nominee, not have a statewide primary or caucuses. Stupid decision by the Colorado GOP, will probably hurt them in the general, which is terrible, given that it’s a swing state.
Cruz played by the rules and won. Trump didn’t play then got mad he lost.
Thank you Frank. I kept seeing the headlines, reading the stories, and scratching my head about the big deal is. Reminds me of the Patriots and Ravens when New England declared a lineman as an eligible receiver or something and Baltimore got caught not knowing the rules.
I agree that this decision seems dubious and will probably have more unintended problematic consequences than we immediately understand.
As you state though the decisions, dubious or otherwise were made months ago and the law of the land for this cycle.
Not committing their delegates early gives them an advantage in this exact situation: the occurrence of a contested convention. Ironcially, Colorado’s delegates may matter a great deal more now because they won’t have been committed early to a candidate who is out of the race.
This is what I’ve understood too. Which is why all the media headlines and Trump’s accusations about Cruz stealing the nomination makes me roll my eyes.
I went around and around with a nice lady on Twitter this morning until she admitted that A) she’s new to party politics and B) wasn’t particularly up to speed on the nuts and bolts of the Colorado GOP rules.
Because her Trump attraction is emotional and not one rationally arrived at she was on that thin edge of the wedge. Everything and everyone was rigging the game, stealing “the will of the people” and thisclose to grabbing her pitchfork and long gun. It’s all bullpuckey. This is a democracy, damnit!
But it’s not an election, it’s a selection. It’s not election rules, it’s party rules.
Trump’s ignorance of the rules proves that he’s an outsider, while Cruz’s knowledge of the rules proves that he’s a member of the GOPe. Trump’s ignorance is, therefore, his primary qualification for the office of president. It’s all so simple.
I don’t know the ins-and-outs of party rules, either. But what I do recognize is a familiar tactic: splash a label on something you don’t like, and worry about the facts later. Color the issue before you draw the lines. Politics, over the last few years, has become a non-stop contest in labeling.
It’s gotten stale.
Nice post EJ. I think orange is the new sad.
could you speak more about your last ‘graph – about the mobs not becoming armed “yet” – am curious and alarmed
edit: forgot to mention this observation, that Drudge is becoming kook central, as much as breitbart, nothing more than a shill and HQ for every interweb conspiracy
I don’t think that this is correct. The party did not pick the nominee. As I understand it (and Majestyk can correct me if I’m wrong), state delegates elected Colorado’s delegates to the national convention. So the election was for the individual delegates rather than for the party’s nominee. Cruz’s team was successful in getting their people elected, while Trump’s team didn’t even try – apparently because they didn’t understand the rules.
Trump’s team is now trying to spin the results – not as a failure on their part – but as a theft by Cruz. Drudge, rather than reporting the facts, is simply putting Trump’s spin up in neon lights.
The details are hilarious when viewed through the lens of “Hires the best people.”
Isn’t it “pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger”?
Great Croce reference. I’m sure you didn’t have any other parts of the song in mind, like:
I’m gonna keep pulling for Ted “Slim” Cruz.
Or:
Thanks. I didn’t want to be the pedant who posted that correction, but I would have if you hadn’t.
You are, in fact, correct. Delegates to the State Convention select the slate of Delegates to the national convention.
Trump and his people didn’t get this because they’re apparently incapable of reading. They also appear to be incompetent, blustering buffoons on top of that.
Re: Croce lyrics. I made a cultural reference that wasn’t firmly pre-1960. If you want accuracy, that’s extra!
Donald Trump, first Republican Presidential Debate, August 6, 2015 (occasional emphasis added):
Sauce for the goose, Donald.
But first, you have to be able to read, and understand, the recipe.
The only thing Trump seems to have mastered is the hallmark of the left, the victim card. Over and over again, Trump demonstrates that he is and always has been a boy of the left. This is not unexpected. He was born and raised the with New York values, and New York has been the seat of leftist thought since the Revolutionary War. There is nary a war that the United States has fought that New Yorkers weren’t against beginning with the Revolution.
I’m with you both (Frank & Brent). Trump may have a good tag line “the system is rigged” but he clearly has not bothered to hire the best people. More irony: Eric & Ivanka didn’t register Republican in time to vote in the NY primary.
My question is what happens if Trump gets to 1,237 anyway with his lackadaisical campaign?
I don’t know what happens if that scenario plays out.
#NeverTrump conservatives stay home, rest of GOP buckles up, digs in, rallies around Trump and fights the Clinton machine. I give it ~75% chance Clinton wins, which would be ~95% any other year that hadn’t been this crazy already.
~25% chance we inaugurate President Trump.