Posted on 09/01/2012 1:16:40 PM PDT by Lazamataz
Recently, the GOP passed some Presidential primary and delegate rules changes, in a very shady manner, that enraged conservatives. This rule will lessen the impact of delegates, and soften the voice of conservatives and Tea Party members. I was one of those who were enraged. In fact, I was at the front of the parade.
However, in life and especially in politics, not all is as it seems. One of Mitt Romney's closest advisors, a man by the name of James Bopp Jr., led the charge to prevent the rules from being this drastically changed. In a letter he wrote, he states:
This is the biggest power grab in the history of the Republican Party because it shifts the power to select delegates from the state party to the candidate. And it would make the Republican Party a top down, not bottom up party.
It would also hurt state parties because they use delegate selection as a way to honor party volunteers and party contributors. A Presidential candidate will have his own agenda for delegate selection. As a result, this always is a threat to party regulars who make up most of our delegates. But it is also a threat to both moderates and conservative who could be purged, depending on who is the Republican Presidential nominee.
This proposal is an over reaction to the problems in a few states where Ron Paul delegates threaten to not support the winning Presidential candidate. I agree that they should honor that pledge, but that can be fix by a few tweaks in a few state laws. Massachusetts handled this successfully by requiring an affidavit promising to vote for the candidate, Mitt Romney, who carried the state. But the Rules change here is overkill -- killing a fly with a sledgehammer.
After the Rules change imbroglio, I decided not to dash off a furious editorial, but instead to let time reveal all the workings, and to allow a little cooling off period. I'm glad I did. It's not as simple as it seemed.
Are there some scoundrels in the Republican party? Absolutely. John Boehner, who ruled against the floor vote in an entirely arbitrary way, springs to mind. One cannot help but think that Karl Rove clapped his chubby little hands together upon the Rules Change, as well. John Sununu, another villain in this power grab, may have been instrumental in removing key Florida delegates from the Rules Commitee. Perhaps the largest and most damning villain in the fiasco is Ben Ginsberg, who is Romney's chief legal advisor. It appears he was interested in even more power-consolidating Rules Changes.
There will be more revelations in the days ahead. It has been leaked to me that there will be more to follow, and that it may well show that Romney's camp initially wanted the Rules Change -- to undercut the Ron Paul brigades -- but when some of the party Establishment took the ball and ran too far downfield, that many in the Romney camp backed off of support. Of course, at that time, it was too late. The blue-blood establishment hacks had grabbed the concepts, racheted them up, and ran as hard as they could for the goal line.
So, we are starting to see the first glimmers of discontent in the Romney camp over the Rules Changes. If more follows, the changes may well be addressed -- with a little push from us, the Dreaded Grassroots.
The fact remains, though, that the Rules, having been changed, are horrific for the grassroots conservative and Tea Party members.
Romney, if he wants our support, should lead.
He should get in front of some conservative groups and let us know that the Rules will be changed again to allow our voices to be heard. We do understand if Romney himself cannot do it, since it is an old chestnut -- run to the right for nomination, run to the left for election -- but a high level surrogate would help us believe his intent.
The jury is still out. Is Romney willing to forego conservative support? We shall see. The blowback from a Romney rejection would be tragic for his election efforts.
Sununu is a creep. No good comes from his presence. He must go. Boehner, too. I wasn’t sure about Boehner, but I am now.
The rules that stopped them from derailing Mitt Romney this year could protect them in the future. If state parties quietly change their rules in the future to put more delegate choice under the power of the party hierarchy and less in the hands of voters, we could have a situation where a "Tea Party candidate" wins a state but is represented at the convention by "establishment" delegates chosen by the "establishment." The new rules would give the candidate some power to veto delegates who were clearly being sent to the convention as patsies for the state party hierarchy.
The whole controversy seems to be one more example of people trying to derail Mitt Romney's campaign.
Not for me. The scumbags are guilty. Of course, Romney was never going to get my vote anyway.
Whatever... Delegates smellegates. The scumbag GOPe can't stop the tea party movement from electing everybody from school boards to congresscritters and senators.
I’m an optimist.
Can you expound on exactly what the states can do to minimize the effects of these Rule Changes?
You actually expect people to believe that nonsense?
Do you know how the chairmen of the committees are chosen?
It is the job of the national chairman to choose those chairmen. I have no doubt at all that Sununu went to him and asked for that job and got it. The national chairman had to know what was going to happen and he helped them do it.
I'm an engineer. I see the glass as being designed twice as big as it should have been.
Bad pick, no doubt. The national RNC chairman is at odds with the Vice chairman on this.
I equate it to the 5 stages of Grief. Many are still stuck on ‘Bargaining”.
They want to believe the GOP is something it is not. They want to believe that Reagan was not a fluke. They want to believe he was the heart and soul of Republicanism. But he WAS a fluke. He was an aberration.
They fought him before the convention, in the convention and after the convention. And they used his words and deeds to craft an image of themselves that they rejected when he was in office.
Smart politics to be sure, but wholly dishonest.
The truth is that JonBon and Mitch, along with Little Lord Lindsay ARE the GOP. If they wanted to stop Obama they had the power to do it since 2010. Period. Bohner holds the power of the purse. Period. Mitch and Lindsay have been quiet as churchmice everytime Harry goes wild about socialism and Nancy spouts straight Marxism.
That’s reality. That’s truth. This ‘feet to the fire’ crap is a fantasy. The base has screamed long and loud since 10 and to what end? If they can’t fight the enemy, they certainly will not fight their leadership. And if they are willing to trade our support for mallable indys, well...
Fox wanted to believe too.
The issue is whether local and state Republican Parties designate a national Republican Party, or a National Republican Party designates local and state administrators. It’s not more complicated.
Time will reveal more. I have no clue as to the outcome. I can barely project tomorrow’s breakfast.
Little hope for BBQd RINO on the menu I’m afraid. But lots of pork in our future ;)
“bad pick, no doubt.”
It was not a bad pick, it was PLANNED for a definite purpose between Sununu and the lawyer and the national chairman.
I won’t bother you anymore on this thread about this but I think, if Romney wins, you will see the national committee give Romney the rule he wants so he can choose the delegates himself in 2016 and you can forget about seeing Tea Pary delegates and real conservative delegates. You will see liberal Romney delegates. He will be the dictator of the Republican Party.
We may. And if we do, and if he wins, they will STILL lose in the long stretch of time. I believe as this poster does, when he said:
I still think this is something of a Republican mirror image to what happened to the Democrats in 1968 and 1972. In ‘68 the up and coming radical left tried to seize the party but were slapped down by their old guard. But in the next four years the radicals came back in spades and took over the party, booting out the old guard for good. And the radicals have controlled the party ever since.
The old guard just made conservatives aware of the need to work up the ranks and take over the party. It won't come in 4 years. But in 8? Maybe.
This is where I think you actually stray from the complete all-out fight to save every possible unborn child.
I know you have an argument you think is pure, but when purity doesn’t save as many lives as political expediency could, we should push both, not attack those who have found a way to save a life.
Your opposition would be like being against protesting abortion clinics, under the argument that since abortion should be illegal, simply blocking women from getting INTO the clinics is a half-assed effort when we should be closing them.
Whereas in fact picketers SAVE LIVES, even if they don’t shut down the clinics. And crisis pregnancy centers save lives, even though they aren’t directly involved in stopping the abortion mills. And yes, politicians pushing things like the partial birth abortion ban, and the concept of pain-capable unborn as a way to regulate and discourage abortions, is a good thing. It will save more lives than simply following your plan.
Of course, electing Romney will save more unborn lives than voting for you in the election. Not pure, but saving more lives.
In addition to replacing the Old guard pols, you must also replace their sycophants that constitute party infrastructure and rebuild it ground up.
Is it not wiser to build a new house rather than to attempt replacing the rotted framework of an old one?
All the ‘advisors’ secretaries, aides...all of it. All of that has to go. So why cling to it? What benefit is attaching one’s ambitions to a foundation filled with baggage and the rest?
To me it makes more sense to start fresh with trystworthy people than try to engage in a snipe hunt trying to rid yourself of all the problems.
You don’t save lives by giving up every principle of God-given unalienable right, every stated purpose of the Constitution, and its explicit, imperative requirement that every innocent person’s life be equally protected under the law, any more than you could win a war by walking onto a battlefield buck naked and weaponless.
Either all are protected equally, or none are secure in their rights.
Romney, at best, represents the abortion on demand status quo. That is crystal clear.
You are 100% correct. It is too hard to trust Romney and the GOP after all the evidence has been put in front and he and the GOP have not done what we thought they would in the past. So why would they change? Tea party elected politicans are not enough to stop the GOPe at this moment.
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