[mountainfolk]

As has been noted many times, Reagan had no viable choice in the selection of Bush to be his VP. The Republican RINOS of the time were pushing for Gerald Ford to be a CO-President if Bush was not selected. Then, as now, the GOP insiders would rather lose an election if they cannot place their chosen person in any leadership position. They hated Reagan as much as they hate Trump, and the voters in both parties supported Reagan. Trump has more resources than Reagan did to fight back. Ronald Reagan was not wealthy and friends helped him to have a better funded retirement when his term was over. Trump had the wealth to sustain his campaign in spite of the Deep State, communist etc, efforts to defeat him. This Republic has been saved twice in recent history from the ongoing efforts of the global elitist conglomarate to destroy us.

[enumerated]

That’s true. I remember at the time thinking - Reagan won the primaries, so why do these party leaders have anything to say about who he chooses?

But since then I’ve seen over and over that winning the most primary votes is not necessarily a guarantee that you will be the nominee. The state delegations decide.

Even with Trump, who was WAY ahead of Cruz in 2016, there were some doubts as to whether the state delegations would choose Trump. It’s a weird system.. ut not quite as weird as the Democrats with their super delegates.

Neither party really wants we the people to have the control - the leaders want to keep the power to themselves.

But one of the blessings of Trump is that he proved over and over that party leaders will back down if you have enough balls. I think that was the purpose of the huge rallies - to remind the leaders how popular he is - and the only real source of political power is we the people.

I think maybe Reagan didn’t realize just how popular he was - he didn’t know his own strength. I will always wonder what would have happened if Reagan had just refused to let them pick his running mate - maybe they would have had to back down.