Lily Bernans. You said . . .
They should nominate Trump. He has the most delegates and the most votes.
Remember. We do not live in a Democracy. We live in a “Republic”.
Part of that ideal is to have equality among societal elements that may not exist with a pure Democracy.
Part of that equality is parties being able to put forth their own candidates by whatever means they think is most representative of what they see as American ideals in the context of
their own states (which is why you have 50 sets of rules for 50 states).
The Democrats had 775 superdelegates, accounting for 771 votes back in 2008. This year they have 719 superdelegates.
And you and I (or Trump) don’t necessarily agree with the concept of “superdelegates” among the Democrats.
But the Democratic party gets to choose the way they want to do this.
Likewise the Republican Party gets to make their own rules about how they will nominate their Party’s representative for the Presidency.
State Republican Parties get to make their own rules to a certain extent.
There is a “populist dimension” and a “delegate dimension” to the process. The Party is going to want answers on other dimensions too (i.e. fund raising).
- Populist dimension (to prove you can reasonably resonate with people)
- Delegate dimension (to prove you have good organizational skills on your team)
- Fundraising dimension (this is considered more unsavory and is not publicly discussed by the candidates much except by Trump concerning his “self-leveraged” campaign which he tells the voters is “self-funded”)
BOTH populist and delegate dimensions are important (& fundraising is important too).
BOTH populist and delegate dimensions are going to be trotted out to the Party to see if you are worthy of a trial of a Presidential run (because they aren’t going to get another chance for four more years so you gotta get it correct now).
BOTH populist and delegate dimensions differ from state to state.
Delegates in one state might all be “bound” on the first ballot. Then free to vote for who ever they want on the second ballot. Some states have only half of their delegates becoming UNBOUND on the second ballot. Then on the third ballot ALL the delegates can vote for whoever they want. Other states (like Pennsylvania) have all UNBOUND delegates from the outset.
Some states “stack” their delegates for Trump using apparent nepotism (Chris Christie and his kid Andrew are New Jersey delegates for example –
here)
You will never hear TRUMP HOLLERING about these TWO committed Trump New Jersey delegate situations and the influence they will have.
Populist differences from state to state include things like WHO is eligible to vote.
Some states allow any U.S. citizen to vote in their Republican Primary. Other states allow only U.S. citizens who are REGISTERED Republicans from that state (for a certain amount of time which ALSO may differ from state to state) to vote.
Some (like New York) require you ARE AND must have BEEN a Registered Republican for a long time (a year
see here or have switched months ago).
Likely since the Trump family is probably largely still democrats; some of Trump’s own kids couldn’t vote for him (they claimed to be “unregistered”).
Trump either has not bothered to learn these delegate rules around the country or he has ignored them or he was unable to capitalize on them—he couldn’t master “
the art of the delegate deal” in these situations.
Either way, if he eventually loses . . . . his lack of effort or . . . his lack of knowledge . . . or his clumsiness in wooing party delegates, will have kept him from sealing “
the art of the Presidential deal”.
In the meantime we will have to listen to him HOLLER about “a rigged system”, “cheating”, “it’s a crooked system”, etc. whenever he loses—and he DOES LOSE.
Trump has even been whining about New York itself BEFORE he won his own state’s primary. This MAY end up costing him even more votes if politically speaking, he gets to November (see
here).
“Most votes” do not necessarily proportionally translate into the “most delegates”. If they DID, Cruz and all the others would have campaigned differently!
You don’t get delegates based solely upon popular vote.
For example in South Carolina Trump only got 32.5% of the popular vote. Yet he won 100% of the delegates.
In Florida Trump won 45.7% of the votes. Yet got 100% of the 99 delegates.
- 32.5% = 100% for Trump in SC
- 45.7% = 100% for Trump in FL
No HOLLERING there.
Trump did NOT HOLLER and COMPLAIN in THOSE states. Nor the many other states where he got disproportionately MORE delegates for a relatively small vote haul.
New York has been the first and only state Trump broke the 50% mark!
Now I am not saying Trump was “cheating” the system here. (But Trump has implied Ted Cruz has)
Cruz knew the system and YOU TAILOR YOUR CAMPAIGN to such a system.
Trump got 2 billion dollars of free advertising from mainstream media so he wisely tailored his campaign to focus there. But Trump UNWISELY ignored the delegate race.
Cruz cannot compete with this Trump’s 2 billion dollar, expense-free account that Trump had.
So instead of flying to Iowa, then flying a personal private jet back to Trump Towers that night in New York so he can “Tweet” all hours of the night, then sleep in his own bed, before a MSM interview, Cruz had to do it differently.
