2016 elections - because it's never too early

[celedhring]

Can somebody board point me how a brokered convention is supposed to work? That seems the most likely outcome at this moment.

EDIT: Oh, there's even a wikipedia entry for it. Seems there's a wikipedia entry for everything nowadays.

Interesting process... who chooses the actual people that are to become delegates? How do candidates ensure they'll still represent their interests once the delegates are "freed"?

[jimmy olsen]

Can somebody board point me how a brokered convention is supposed to work? That seems the most likely outcome at this moment.

EDIT: Oh, there's even a wikipedia entry for it. Seems there's a wikipedia entry for everything nowadays.

Interesting process... who chooses the actual people that are to become delegates? How do candidates ensure they'll still represent their interests once the delegates are "freed"?

They used to be the big wigs in local party machines, no idea how they do it today. It hasn't been relevant in decades.



=======
You almost have to feel bad for these folks, but they made their bed and now they have to lie in it.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/the-day-the-republican-party-ruptured-220108#ixzz41jjG9JXR

The day the Republican Party ruptured

Growing resistance to a dominating Trump could splinter the GOP beyond repair.

By Eli Stokols

03/02/16 03:13 AM EST

Donald Trump's Super Tuesday sweep propelled him ever closer to the GOP presidential nomination — and pushed the party he seeks to lead to the breaking point.

The Manhattan billionaire, boosted by support from disaffected blue-collar voters, relished his Super Tuesday victories beneath giant chandeliers inside a Versailles-inspired ballroom at his own Mar-a-Lago resort. Trump had just razed Ted Cruz's Southern firewall and left Marco Rubio gasping as Chris Christie, the former alpha male he's turned into his own obsequious warm-up act, introduced his former rival as "Mr. Trump."

It was just the latest surreal moment in a stranger-than-fiction election cycle—and vivid proof that the Republican Party as we've known it for decades, a party controlled by an enclave of country clubbers and an East Coast establishment, is no more.

With every victory, Trump is splintering the party, evoking strong emotions from an increasingly outspoken group of detractors and from the rank-and-file voters propelling his candidacy and rendering the GOP's Washington power brokers powerless.

"We have expanded the Republican Party," Trump said Tuesday night, noting the spike in turnout across this year's GOP primaries. "I am a unifier. I know people will find it hard to believe, but I'm a unifier."

"The Republican Party has become more dynamic, more diverse," he continued. "We're taking from the Democrats, we're taking from the independents. We have a lot more people."

As usual, Trump's words contained more than a grain of indisputable truth. But it's his other words—the schoolyard insults and crude New York City vernacular that masks a lack of knowledge about policy, the xenophobic dog whistles so loud they sound like a bark, the attacks on Republican elders, moderation on Planned Parenthood, even neutrality in the Israel-Palestine conflict—that so many Republicans cannot abide. As they dig in against his candidacy, they are girding for a civil war not, they insist, in order to cling to power over the party but to save the ideas and principles that have always held it together.

It is a war the GOP as we know it may not survive, "a big and strong fight going on about the future of the Republican Party as intense as we've ever seen," said Pete Wehner, a veteran of the George W. Bush White House who has savaged Trump of late. "A Trump victory would be catastrophic to the Republican Party and a terrible danger to the republic itself. If he wins the presidency, you may see the efforts to form a new party."

The disconnect between the Republican establishment and its donor class and the party's grassroots base has been widening for years, ever since Barack Obama took office in 2009. But the increasing likelihood of Trump becoming the GOP standard-bearer is tearing whatever fraying threads had held this fractious coalition together.

As Trump racks up wins, his party is splitting into two factions with immeasurable distance between them—the #NeverTrump crowd on one side and the Make America Great Again movement on the other.

Following his huge win in Nevada's caucuses last week, the first members of Congress got behind him. Days later, Trump unrolled the shocking endorsement from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a figure of the GOP establishment, and then Sen. Jeff Sessions, a darling of the party's activist base—signaling growing acceptance by Republicans across the conservative spectrum that Trump is becoming the party's new figurehead.

But a group of high-ranking Republicans, who dismissed Trump's viability for nearly a year, are suddenly digging in against him, talking of third party candidates and a floor fight at July's RNC convention as their last chance to stave Trump off. Rick Wilson, a GOP consultant in Florida supporting Rubio, compared the Trump-backers in his party to the French who accommodated the Nazis during World War Two, blasting "Vichy Republicans" for supporting someone he called "a hideous cancer on American political life."


"I don't remember anything like this in my lifetime of effectively 30 years in Republican Party politics," said Bruce Haynes, a GOP operative in Washington. "People don't know what to do. They call me in tears and say, 'I can't vote for him because he's a liar, a cheat and a racist and yet everything I've ever cared for in politics is on the line and could be lost if I don't vote for him.'"

"It's an impossible choice."

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, the GOP's last presidential ticket, have ratcheted up their criticism of Trump. New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, chairwoman of the Republican Governors Association, couldn't say Tuesday night if she'd support Trump as her party's nominee. And several GOP members of Congress are going further than that.

"I cannot support Donald Trump," Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse wrote in a long Facebook post Saturday night. "If Donald Trump ends up as the GOP nominee, conservatives will need to find a third option." At least four House members have followed suit, stating publicly they will not support Trump no matter what.

While American history is replete with presidential nominees who've been less than welcomed by their party's power brokers, never in recent memory have so many prominent politicians vowed not to support a candidate who's increasingly a lock to top their ticket.

"There is someone now leading the pack who could destroy the party and lose an election that should be ours," said former Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman.

But the establishment clearly waited too long for its collective freak out. Trump had won three of the first four nominating contests before Republicans finally washed away months of magical thinking that the political newcomer who's led the polls since the summer would somehow collapse on his own. The Republican donor class, after pouring more than $100 million into Jeb Bush's super PAC, is redoubling its efforts to halt Trump, deciding this week to beef up the operations of Our Principles PAC, which was created in January to attack Trump.

Tim Miller, who'd served as Bush's campaign communications director, just joined that effort. On Tuesday morning, he penned a message to his friends on Facebook: asking those living in Super Tuesday states, "Please for the love of God go vote in the Republican primary against Trump."

But by evening, Trump was racking up victories across the South, the region that's been the party's backbone. While Ted Cruz won his home state of Texas, Marco Rubio's disappointing night—he appeared to be shut out until notching his first win in Minnesota late—leaves the GOP establishment without a strong standard-bearer. But the Florida senator, perhaps the last hope of the establishment, vowed not to quit the race.

"No one is going to call for us to get behind [Trump]," Rubio said. "They know that the nomination of Donald Trump means the end of the modern conservative movement and the modern Republican Party in a very devastating way."

[Gups]

Alaska is one of the straight proportional GOP primaries, so it won't matter much delegate wise who wins, but it's a further feather in Cruz's camp if he holds on.

If the hope was to "derail" Trump and have someone else win the majority, Cruz being stronger than expected today makes that all but impossible. His projected votes, with or without other people in the race, in a lot of the states after today is terrible. Cruz is just deeply unpopular outside of some very conservative strongholds (and Alaska is certainly one of those.) I now think the realistic goal by the GOP establishment will be to force a contested convention and dump Trump. If they do this I think he runs independent out of spite, but they may be willing to pay the piper on that one.

Would he have time to get on the ballot?

What's happened to Blomberg's possible run? Haven't heard much on that recently.

[Eddie Teach]

Bloomberg isn't going to run against Hillary.

[garbon]

What's happened to Blomberg's possible run? Haven't heard much on that recently.

He always said decision would be made this month. With Hillary clearly demonstrating again that she is going to be the nominee, and polling for his potential candidacy generally drawing little interest, I don't think he'll run. There's no way he'd want to hand the general election to Trump.

[Martinus]

After further analysis, perhaps Christie saw something in the back of Trump's head.

Perhaps a rear hatch in Trump's head opened, and there was a tiny alien pulling the levers inside.

[Martinus]

Short of Trump winning outright the majority of delegates, this is possibly the best outcome for him. Cruz got enough wins that the establishment has no reason to push him to pull out - but Rubio is still holding out for that big Florida win so is unlikely to pull out either. 

[Legbiter]

[Martinus]

Rubio saying Cruz had a "bad night" and he [Rubio] is gonna surge to nomination. 

http://www.breitbart.com/video/2016/03/01/rubio-cruz-had-bad-night-if-he-cant-sweep-south-wheres-he-going-to-win-ill-win-winner-take-all-states/

Didn't some of you people here say he is smart?

[Legbiter]

Well Rubio did win Minnesota so he's in until Trump takes Florida.

[celedhring]

Yeah, Florida seems to be the big decider to me. If Trump carries that one, it should be over for Rubio.

[Legbiter]

The low energy coalition could theoretically try to eke it out to the convention and to swing things their way there but that would not end well . 

[Legbiter]

The NYT is running a live projection of delegate counts--for all the talk of Trump dominance, he is coming in at ~43% of the total right now. That obviously isn't enough to get him the nomination without a contested convention. It may be easier to run up big margins when the winner take all states come around in a couple weeks, but things also may get harder for him when/if the field consolidates.

Promise me, ar, promise me that you'll never lose faith like that Nate Silver faggot. 

[garbon]

The low energy coalition could theoretically try to eke it out to the convention and to swing things their way there but that would not end well . 

Seems like their best shot. Not like it would make a lot of sense to coalesce Trump. Not much use in sticking to a party that no longer supports any of the things you want it to.

[derspiess]

Not to go all GOP nerd on you guys, but with modern GOP rules there is no such thing as a brokered GOP convention.  There could be a contested convention where they have to vote more than once, but the chances of that are very slim.  I heard this from none other than Reince Grievous, so you know it's solid info.