Actually, in many states the delegates ARE picked by the candidates. See this link for Illinois, for example:
http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P16/IL-R
It's a state by state thing. Historically, the party has always been fairly faithful at supplying loyal delegates even when the rules don't require it. But this has been anything but a typical election, so who knows?
If it means anything to you, Newt Gingrich, who seems to be something of a process wonk, believes that most of the delegates will be loyal to their candidates. I'd guess he knows more than you or I about this, but I wouldn't bet my house on that.
It’s true I’ve never been directly involved, but from what I’ve read, the overall result is that 70% of delegates are not selected by the campaigns. I don’t remember where I read the 70% figure so maybe it was off-base. I hope so.
From Wiki:
“At least in name, superdelegates are not involved in the Republican Party nomination process. There are delegates to the Republican National Convention that are seated automatically, but they are limited to three per state, consisting of the state chairsperson and two district-level committee members.”
That means there will be either 150 or 165 (depending on whether the territories are included or just states) delegates that are seated and “committed” to a candidate and the candidate had no say in their selection. If Trump wins a total of 35 primaries, there could be 105 delegates that are “his” but have no real loyalty to him. There are many other cases where local procedures for delegate selection can result in delegates with no loyalty to their candidate. 165 is a far cry from 70%, but it is still a big chunk of delegates that we KNOW the candidate had no choice over.
It is a mess. A much more transparent process would simply allow the candidate to choose all of his own delegates from each state.
Yes, some states may send loyal delegates, but others will send almost entire delegations that feel they are “free agents” outside that single first vote they are bound to. On all other matters, like changes to Rule 40B, they may feel free to vote against “their” candidate’s interests.
Remember that Trump is the ONLY candidate that currently meets the “more than 50% of delegates from 8 states” requirement to be a nominee. It is entirely possibly that Cruz will not win more than 50% of delegates in any more states, and Kasick definitely won’t meet the 8 state minimum. So if Rule 40B remains in place, Trump will be the only allowed choice even if he falls short of 1237 delegates. If that is the case, then loyal Trump delegates would fight any change to Rule 40B and we’ll see if they do.