Palace Intrigues: The Plotting Is In Full Force

GOP official says that the party elects the nominee, not the voters, and says it's only a media-created"perception" that it's ever been otherwise.

Political parties, not voters, choose their presidential nominees, a Republican convention rules member told CNBC, a day after GOP front-runner Donald Trump rolled up more big primary victories.

"The media has created the perception that the voters choose the nomination. That's the conflict here," Curly Haugland, an unbound GOP delegate from North Dakota, told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Wednesday. He even questioned why primaries and caucuses are held.

Haugland is one of 112 Republican delegates who are not required to cast their support for any one candidate because their states and territories don't hold primaries or caucuses....

Haugland said he sent a letter to each campaign alerting them to a rule change he's proposing, which would allow any candidate who earns at least one delegate during the nominating process to submit his or her name to be nominated at this summer's convention.

A current rule, Rule 40(B), states that no one can be nominated, even on subsequent ballots, unless that person has won a majority of delegates in at least 8 states. Trump accomplished that last night; Cruz has the majority of delegates from three states, and has a good shot of reaching the threshold of eight by July.

On the other hand, there's Kasich.

Guess who is going to try to angle to have the rule changed to allow someone with the majority of one state's delegates be nominated? And guess who'll be opposing that?

There are a lot of games that people can play with delegates, too. The actual delegates are usually chosen at a party meeting well after the primary. (Some states, like Illinois, vote them directly.)

That means you can stock that pool with fish of your own liking.

And yes, they do have to vote for the candidate who won them on the first ballot.

But that assumes they vote at all.

What if they just don't show up?

In one too-brazen-to-be-contemplated maneuver, the GOP could stock Trump's pond of delegates with fish that simply don't show up to vote for him at the convention, thus denying him the nomination, even if he has, going into the convention, 1237 or more.

Meanwhile, GOP regulars (I hesitate to call Erick Erickson "establishment") are getting together to plot a either derail Trump in the primary process or even launch a possible "Independent Republican" third party challenge.

Three influential leaders of the conservative movement have summoned other top conservatives for a closed-door meeting Thursday in Washington, D.C., to talk about how to stop Donald Trump and, should he become the Republican nominee, how to run a third-party "true conservative" challenger in the fall.

The organizers of the meeting include Bill Wichterman, who was President George W. Bush's liaison to the conservative movement; Bob Fischer, a South Dakota businessman and longtime conservative convener; and Erick Erickson, the outspoken Trump opponent and conservative activist who founded RedState.com.

"Please join other conservative leaders to strategize how to defeat Donald Trump for the Republican nomination," the three wrote in an invitation obtained by POLITICO that recently went out to conservative leaders, "and if he is the Republican nominee for president, to offer a true conservative candidate in the general election.:

And before the Kneejerk Accusers of Things people come out -- no, I wasn't invited, no, I'm not going, and no, I wouldn't go even if I were invited.

But I'm sure that's where you'd go get all that Fat Cash the Establishment is handing out to people by the truckfull for opposing Donald Trump.

posted by Ace at 05:17 PM

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