The Colorado delegates were assigned six weeks after the citizens had their very limited say, and the assignments in no way resembled the voters input. Ethical conservatives cheer this unbelievably corrupt process.
I sent this E-mail to Senator Cory Gardner on March 1.
It is absolutely disgusting that we are not being allowed to vote for president. I am so sorry I voted for you in the last election.
This is America, not the Soviet Union.
Similar things went on with Ron Paul’s various campaigns. After-the-fact rule changes, arbitrary procedural changes, undocumented decision making processes, etc. In one case, the Paul delegates were literally driven around town with their bus driver refusing to take them to the convention center until an important vote was over, preventing the delegates from participating. The big difference between Trump and Paul (not politically, but only as far as publicity goes) is that this time there are so many more people who have their eyes open about what is happening.
Thank God for the alternative news outlets! The MSM are only propaganda outlets for the Powers That Be. They may not be so blatant as North Korean news, but every day they seem to get a little closer.
This was America, not the Soviet Union.
All that started to change after nations and national academies of sciences were united into an “Orwellian Ministry of Scientific (UN)Truths“ on 24 OCT 1945.
Kennedy delayed USSR’s domination of the world for a short period (1960-1963) with the Apollo Space Program. Nixon and Kissinger surrendered to fate by ending the Apollo Space Program in 1971-72 in exchange for peace with the USSR and China.
The above, unplatable review of history does not mean America is doomed.
Our nation is young (1776-2016), only three times as old as me (1936-2016).
The inalienable rights of humans to self-governance grew out of the scientific revolution, halted seventy years ago by fear of worldwide nuclear annihilation.
You, Steven aka Tony, have done more to restore democracy than almost any other blogger. So be of good cheer. Once again history will confirm that “Truth is victorious, never untruth.“
Why go through the motions of having primaries if party bosses are going to ignore them? Through much of American history party bosses determined the nominee and if there were primaries, they were considered non binding “beauty contests”. At least there was not the pretense of voters having a say in the matter as there is now. Far more honest and less hypocritical!
IMHO this explains it best:
“What happened in Colorado is right out in the open. Everybody’s known how Colorado runs its affairs. Everybody has known. Nobody just chose to look at it. It’s no secret that Colorado was gonna have a convention and they’re gonna choose their delegates before the primary. It’s not a secret. It’s just nobody leaked it. Nobody talked about it. Nobody bragged about it. So it was left to be discovered by people who didn’t know. And it turns out that people on the Trump campaign didn’t know.”
I can understand how they might feel tricked here. I can understand how they might feel screwed because millions of votes, theoretically, are gonna happen that aren’t going to count. Hey, welcome to establishment politics.”
I’ll hold my nose and vote for anyone but the new democratic socialists. Even if he is a RINO from Ohio, a billionaire real estate developer or a Senator with a conservative rating of 97%.
Couple of comments: This caucus system, while imperfect does fix the problem of “drive by” democrats and independends whimsically jumping into the republican party nomination process. This caucus is a representative vote where people show up at caucusing location and pick a representative of their tiny district based on that tiny district’s vote, which is typically covers several neighborhoods (when I caucused I personally knew some of the people who showed up). That representative then later shows up to another meeting where a smaller set of representatives are selected. I personally know a lady who was chosen as a delegate. From her involvement she said that cruz was clearly favored by those in this process.
I see no way no how this is “communist”. If anything it’s undemocatic but very republican in nature.
The core problem that bothers you was that this process excluded democrats and independents from jumping onboard at the last minute to nominate their candidate for the republican party. You may not like the results but I absolutely don’t see the outrage here. In some ways its very refreshing to actually get together with neighbors you know, pick someone who represents the majority to go represent your neighborhoods at a higher level. In no way is this some typical MOB vote like we’ve seen in other states. And no, its not perfect either.
No different than ND
For GOP voters already unhappy at the prospect of a contested convention, one delegate headed to July’s Republican National Convention has an uncomfortable reminder for them: They’re not really in charge.
“The media has created the perception that the voters choose the nomination,” said Curly Haugland, a delegate from North Dakota told CNBC. “That’s the conflict here.”
In the strictest sense, that’s true across the board.
At primaries and caucuses across the country this spring, voters are actually electing delegates to the convention, allocated proportionally to candidates by each state’s vote, who will ostensibly vote on their behalf for the candidate of their choice.
So my thought is that if they do not need my vote to nominate, why would they need it to elect.
Think of it like the Congress: you have a House and a Senate, and both have to agree in order for anything to happen. We’re like the House, and they’re like the Senate.
People have been grappling with this issue since classical times, if not before. It’s nothing new. Various solutions to the problem have been tried. Obviously the system we have has its detractors (both on the “House” side and on the “Senate” side!) and it’s had detractors since the republic’s founding. The system isn’t perfect but it’s the best one we’ve been able to find. It has served us reasonably well, and it exists for very good reasons. Many books have been written about what those reasons are. The Twitter version is simply that over the long term, it has been found to produce the best overall results, both for us and for them.
The people have always had the power to change us into what you want, via direct democracy: a straight, direct national vote on the question. No one would stop them if they tried to hold such a vote. And if the result were in your favor, I’d be among the first to say, give you what you want, you’re entitled to it.
But for 240 years, the people have chosen not to do this. A fact for which I am thankful. And that doesn’t make me an elitist or “one of them”. I’m not. It just makes me a realist.
Scott Adams, the Dilbert artist, is not partisan but notes: “I don’t know if Trump would be a good president. But I do know he has higher odds of breaking the corrupt system than other candidates.”
There seems to be a disconnect here with the facts. It is obvious that many people look at the Repub and Dem parties as public institutions. They are not. They are private corporations that have the absolute right to pick whomever they want to run for office. They want people to join and support their corporation so the offer various forums to solicit opinions from potential customers but in the final analysis, it is their company and they can promote any person they desire for any office. Every state chapter has the right to poll the population any way they desire. Some have formal ‘elections’, some just caucus. They all arm their state delegations with various restrictions of whom to vote for and the national organizations decide how they want to acknowledge the candidate suggestions from the state delegations but if they wanted to just say, “thank you but no thanks”, they have the absolute right to do that. They own the company. Mr. Trump was not upset in the slightest in the several states where he won all the delegates in winner-take-all contests. Colorado had the exact same system in 2012 and no one complained. They changed to this system because their prior primary election method had too many Dem crossover voters polluting the selection. If you are disgusted with the Dem and Repub corporations (as I am!!), there is absolutely nothing stopping you from starting a new competitive election corporation that promotes your values. However don’t accuse these jokers of ‘corruption’. it doesn’t apply, it is their company to do with what they want, within legal constraints of course.
Also, if Mr. Trump wants to be totally fair, he has won roughly 35% of the popular vote (65% of the voters voted against him so far) but has accumulated about 45% of the delegates. To be totally fair he would give a quarter of his delegates to other candidates.
You have no idea what you are talking about
You sound like my wife!!
“This is America, not the Soviet Union” ?
Remember the Fundamental “Change” so invoked my Soviet Premier Obama ??
So now the U.S. is the Soviet Union, and the former Soviet Union is now Capitalistic Russia !!!
My how times have changed…
I expect this type of behavior from Democrats, history bears this out. I would expect Republicans to at least be adults. They are apparently just as sleazy and unethical as those they oppose.