Donald Trump’s Insincere Process Arguments

National Review ^ | April 15, 2016 | Michael Barone

[kiryandil]

The blowhard never quits, does he? :)

[TXSearcher]

Why I cringe when Trump whines about "the rules"....and how they aren't "fair" to him.......

We already have an elitist dictator "wannabe" in the White House that doesn't believe he has to follow rules or laws if they interfere in what he wants......

We already have massive numbers of fat cat political elitists in Washington who make rules, regulations and laws for us "little people" to live by.....but believe they are not bound by those same things because they are "special".

I'm not looking for another "privileged" President......so I wish he would drop that crap.

[Gaffer]

After the fact reasoning and more digs trying to equate delegates awarded by open voting (however each state apportions them by actual votes) and those “rule changes” that take the general voter population out of the formula. Circumlocution isn’t your strong point.

[nathanbedford]

The Trump position is that Colorado is unfair because people were denied the vote, they even use the expression, "one man one vote."

The problem with their position is that it is hypocritical because in other situations where the vote was denied Trump hypocritically scooped up all the delegates and put them in his pocket. If one man one vote is the test, more than half, nearly 2/3, of the people in Florida were disenfranchised when Donald Trump walked off with all the delegates. This happened in several states besides Florida. The Trump forces waxed indignant only about Colorado, and now more recently, trying to extricate themselves from their hypocrisy, they complain about the whole system nationwide.

They attempt to escape blame for their hypocrisy by committing more hypocrisy. They want to deny Ted Cruz the fruits of his labors when he plays by the rules in Colorado but they want to keep the delegates which go to Donald Trump in Florida even though many voters who voted against Trump are not represented. One man one vote sloganeering evidently applies only when the result is unfavorable to Donald Trump.

The fact remains that Donald Trump has 46% of the delegates with only 35% of the vote nationwide so far. That comes because of the system which has until now favored Donald Trump more than any other candidate. Yet Trump complained about Colorado where he did not participate.

For the record, the Colorado Republican Party, a private entity, not the state of Colorado, changed the system because of the rules imposed on them by the Republican National Committee which required delegates to vote for primary winners, even if they were committed to candidates like Santorum in the last cycle who were effectively out of the race. Ted Cruz had nothing to do with instituting the rules, the rules apply to all the candidates, Donald Trump was advised of the rules and simply mismanaged his campaign or cynically disdained to compete to preserve an issue about which he could whine. It is deeply unfair to imply that Ted Cruz's blameworthy for a rule change done by the Republican Party in Colorado.

The rules were fair, they applied to all candidates and they were fairly applied. If the Republican Party in Colorado concluded that it was in their best interests to conduct the contest according to the rules they chose, that was their prerogative. It is a fundamental tenet of conservatism that federalism is beneficial because it provides 50 laboratories to experiment and demonstrate what system works best.

[Gaffer]

“Unfair” is a matter of perspective and political bent.

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_28700919/colorado-republicans-cancel-2016-presidential-caucus-vote

Giving up the pretext of even holding a token citizen vote on the candidates wasn’t done out of fairness; it was done out of maneuvering. Read the last paragraph in the article.

Yes, the COGOP certainly had the right, but ‘right’ is not on their side in this. There is no basis to compare the CO system as it was executed with another state where actual citizen votes were considered with respect shares of delegates in any matter.

When you have to write a book explaining the rightness of a decision in the face of massive kickback all over this country (and, not just from Donald Trump), your position is weak at best. You can’t pawn this off on other states’ systems and say “he got a disproportionate share...” because there wasn’t even a “share” in Colorado.

I respect the “we were within the rules we just made - lump it” much more than trying to put enough rouge, powder and lipstick on this pig of a sham so you can kiss it.

Either way, Cruz is damaged by this and he’s not walking into that convention with a win. He may ‘win’ nomination eventually if the national GOP takes a prep class from COGOP, but this has embalmed his chances for a general election win.