Let's Settle This: Debate Suggested Over GOP Primary, Caucus & Convention System and Rules

Self ^ | 15 April 2016 | AmericanInTokyo

[AmericanInTokyo]

"To be suspicious is not a fault. To be suspicious all the time without coming to a conclusion is the defect." -- Lu Xun

Donald Trump and his campaign generals have lodged serious allegations and complaints about the 2016 Republican Party rules governing the election of delegates to the National Convention via primaries, caucuses, county/local and state conventions or a combination of these.

Words such as "rigged", "fixed", "corrupt" and "broken" have been thrown at the party on state levels in the aftermath of delegates allegedly being 'poached' from the Trump Camp by the Cruz Camp, with the conspiratorial assistance of the "establishment" of the Republican Party, which wants to do everything within their power to prevent the Will of the People to be expressed which would necessarily result in the nomination of a firebrand, Mr. Trump.

Ted Cruz' response, similar to that of state GOP parties or national party spokespersons, has been that rules and protocols governing the intricate selection of these national delegates were known way in advance, and that Mr. Trump is simply upset because through his lack of preparation and late ground infrastructre in the various states, he has come up short in organizing his followers through these processes.

Examining the potential impact of the charges to our very American Way of Life and the Rule of Law, it can be seen as serious, indeed. The standing inference is that basically a corrupt system is operating to deny the front runner the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. Internationally it is now widely reported that stunning, high-level charges have been brought against the concept of free elections in none other than the United States, and as a result the image of the United States is suffering. Because this is an open, volatile and festering wound at present, a clear conclusion should be reached through a public airing of these allegations, and subsequent rebuttals to them. It is in this spirit that the following is suggested:

[stockpirate]

No need for Trump to debate Lyin’ Ted, Ted is crashing in the polls and after the next 6 primaries he will be done for good.

[DoughtyOne]

Where's R2D2 I RM2T?

I aRe Me 2 Ted...

[XEHRpa]

>>> The GOP as a private company doesn’t hold water, they do get huge amounts of taxpayer money.

Is that true in a way that, for example, the Libertarian party doesn’t have access to? Or is it based on triggers of vote percentages, etc.? I am curious.

I realize that public funding of presidential campaigns can happen, but I thought it is based on support percentages and not o having the name Republican or Democrat associated with your name.

[jimpick]

The problem with your set up is you have not eliminated cross over voting. I favor Colorado’s set up for this reason. We never get a real conservative in Michigan because of cross over voting.

I get called a GOPe because of this fact. The truth is that a delegate was taken from Santorum and given to Romney in Michigan. That really pissed me off. I became a delegate because that is were the candidate is selected based on the delegate given to Romney. So call me all kinds of names because I seen what happened in Colorado happen in Michigan. And that is delegates selecting the candidate.

I also saw this election where Trump receive a bunch of cross over votes. And Trump supporters have said as much here on this board. I really dont want dems selecting my candidate. So I think your set up must stop cross over voting.

[Just mythoughts]

But Trump and his side do intimate the sense that they are on to something, something really BIG (and rotten in Denmark). Would not such a debate, since you feel they are in the right, would be a chance to blow this thing wide open on national TV with deeper specifics than what we have been getting?

The 'thing' is already blown wide open and it really is NOT about Trump... It is 'we the people' voters, who were given the shaft... Cruz just happened to be the beneficiary of the GOP devious plot... which turned into NEVERTRUMP. Apparently, you think the master debater Cruz will make Trump tremble in another debate... Yet, you do not even recognize/realize who the GOP of Colorado insulted.

[tinyowl]

Exactly how would a debate between these two settle anything?

"Who wins the argument" has nothing to do with whether it's true or not.

If true, do you really think the evidence of it is going to be sitting there such that Trump and his team can spend a few days ... oh ... just gathering it ... and then we can have a substantial debate about whether it's true, and that debate will somehow expose the actual real truth?

Why not just decide whether Hillary is guilty in Bengazi by having her get up on stage with one of the Mom's?

So, I get it, but you can't say 'If Trump doesn't prove his case, then Ted Cruz is not sleeping with an enemy who's rigged it"

Further, you know damn well it's technically (probably) not rigged in a way that 'breaks the rules or the law', but that doesn't mean it's not a rigged sham. Corruption does not become entrenched by parading it's means and tricks out in the open, nor by leaving easily discovered evidence.

So a debate about it to prove it true or not ... I'm not seeing how that demonstrates anything ... one with an interest in preserving the scam and knowledge of the scam ... the other with zero access into the organization doing the scamming.

On top of that, again, we're not talking here about provable crimes. (it's weird that Cruz supporters think it's a virtue that technically no rules have been broken, nothing illegal's going on. Thank God the country wasn't a bunch of Cruz supporters in 1770. "Well, no rules are being broken ... there is no law that says you can't tax without representation"

And would a debate between Patrick Henry and the King have proven whether the situation was untenable and corrupt?

[Apogee]

Good points there,

Somehow, members of both parties are forgetting that our system is not a democracy. We choose delegates, whom we theoretically know, and whose judgment we theoretically trust, and they in turn choose other delegates/candidates/laws acting in our stead.
A great deal of the whining on both sides of the aisle (and camps within each side, seems to be due to a lack of understanding of this principle. I would dare wonder if the principle itself has been the object of assault, and to what end.
That said, the parties would do well to reflect on the fact that if their decisions don’t reflect the perceived will of their constituents they had best have a very good and articulable reason for differing, or all sorts of mayhem may break loose.

[jimpick]

You state:

“. Trump and Mr. Cruz, to give clarity to and gauge the charges”.

What is Cruz guilty of? Following the rule?

Cruz is not guilty of anything and is being set up as the bad guy for following the rules. Why would he come in and defend a poorly set up delegate selection process when he did not create it?

Because of this this looks to be a no go from the start. The Colorado GOP is the one who should have to answer for the way Colorado ended not Cruz.

[sargon]

Why should Cruz have charges leveled at him because the GOP rules were not put in place by him?

Cruz is simply benefiting from a system in Colorado, for instance, that was put in place to help the designated insider, Jeb Bush, to get all the delegates.

Since Jeb Bush was unexpectedly squashed like an insect by Donald Trump, the GOPe's new darling, Ted Cruz, ended up being the benefactor, since the overt goal of the party elites is to sabotage the party's own frontrunner.

The fact is, in Colorado, delegates and potential delegates who were known to be Trump supporters were actively excluded from the process in a systematic manner, using any and every means possible, whether procedural or informal.

And as soon as the theft was successful, somebody tweeted from the Colorado GOP Twitter account (not the Cruz campaign's account) "We did it! #NeverTrump"!

And the GOPe mission was accomplished: steal Colorado's delegates for Ted Cruz without a primary, or even a reasonable, widespread caucus occurring.

The theft was deliberately engineered, from start to finish, to benefit a candidate designated by the elites, and to allocate delegates in a way that did not in any sense represent the will of the state's GOP voters at large.

In a word, un-American.

Crooked, and, of course, perfectly proper and "by the rules", from beginning to end.

Moral in any way? Not so much.

Ted Cruz and the GOPe are all about thwarting the will of the GOP voter at this point, and nothing more.

It's transparent, it's despicable, and the People see exactly who's doing it and who's benefitting from it, and Ted Cruz's Presidential candidacy is over, plain and simple...

[Slyfox]

Trump knows that he cannot debate. His ability was on full display when he defended his manhood on prime-time cable.

If you can't debate always mention your manhood, then everyone will not notice that you can't debate.

[Zenjitsuman]

If the Colorado shenanigans were legal and according to the rules, then it is especially damning that the Colorado Republican establishment would consciously make rules to nullify the votes of the common voter.

In other words, they disenfranchised the voters.

[SubMareener]

I had a really long and considered answer ready to go, and then I checked back to see the other comments. So I decided to quote LTG Russel Honore: “You’re Stuck on STUPID!”

[jimpick]

The same was done in my precinct by Trump supporters to the establishment people. I receive a slat of who to vote for and who not to vote for.

But Cruz followed the rule set up by the Colorado GOP. He did not set the rules up he just followed them. The GOP has a right to select who they want. If you dont like that start another party or take them over.

But I will state it again. Why does Cruz have to defend a poorly set up system he did not create? He dont and until you Trump supporters realize that you wont get what you want. If you want to not be looked at as a bunch of whiners embed yourself in the GOP and take it over or start your own party.

[Zenjitsuman]

Cruz lost at least 10 times to Trump, look at Time, Drudge, Salon, CNN and all the other post debate polls.

Cruz isn’t such a good debater, he just remembers the last thing you said.

He is programmed like Rubio.

[jimpick]

For a while now the conservatives have complained about cross over voters picking our candidate. I am in that group. I can understand why Colorado did what they did. You had to be affiliated with the party to be a delegate. That certainly stops cross over voters.

But it has it problems with the amount of time that it takes to choose a delegate. It could be a lot better than it is. But what you are saying is to let the dems vote for our candidate. If it was limited to just republicans I would be open to the popular vote of republicans choosing our candidate.

[AmericanInTokyo]

Do you have a comment of substance, to defend your viewpoint, or is that the limit of what you are able to share (muster)?

[Lisbon1940]

On June 6, Trump will reach the same point. I expect you’ll say that he was mathematically eliminated last so that makes him the winner.

[DoughtyOne]

On June 6th Trump will be going over 1237.

Thanks for reminding me.

[Just mythoughts]

The same was done in my precinct by Trump supporters to the establishment people. I receive a slat of who to vote for and who not to vote for. But Cruz followed the rule set up by the Colorado GOP. He did not set the rules up he just followed them. The GOP has a right to select who they want. If you dont like that start another party or take them over. But I will state it again. Why does Cruz have to defend a poorly set up system he did not create? He dont and until you Trump supporters realize that you wont get what you want. If you want to not be looked at as a bunch of whiners embed yourself in the GOP and take it over or start your own party.

One of the many reasons I support Trump is I want the corrupt GOP destroyed. They fit just as easily in the Animal Farm role of some animals are above the rest. And what you obviously do not get is the nation's perception of Colorado, is the GOP is a bunch of crooks who denied 'the people' out of their 'right' to vote... But you carry on justifying your part in the ugly dirty process. AND it is also obvious, the Colorado GOP could care less about a win come November...

[Zenjitsuman]

Cruz lost at least 10 times to Trump, look at Time, Drudge, Salon, CNN and all the other post debate polls.

Cruz isn’t such a good debater, he just remembers the last thing you said.

He is programmed like Rubio.