Can GOP Party Bosses Rig the Rules to Keep Trump from Winning? You Bet!

[marmar]

(AlterNet) As post-debate pollsters assess how far the mighty Trump may have fallen after Wednesday’s Republican debate, there’s another dynamic that may deny him the 2016 nomination: Republican Party bosses could rig the arcane rules governing awarding delegates and convention votes to keep the nomination from Trump.

“I think they will eventually,” said Curly Haugland, a Republican National Committee member from North Dakota and longtime RNC Rules Committee member, in an interview before Wednesday’s presidential debate. “This process was set up for Bush or Walker to win—establishment guys.”

Though Haugland is one of 168 RNC members, he’s a maverick who’s been making the eyebrow-raising argument that the rules governing the 2016 convention are filled with contradictions that nullify whatever occurs before the opening gavel hits the podium in Cleveland next July—including the primary season’s results. Convention delegates and nobody else, he says, get to choose the 2016 presidential ticket.

“Everybody is depending on these primary results, except it is all built on a house of cards, a fabricated reality,” he said. “Everybody wants to have a presumptive nominee. There’s hundreds of millions of dollars at stake to buy votes for primary elections. The votes they are buying are worthless. Nobody wants to hear that story.” ................(more)

http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/can-gop-party-bosses-rig-rules-keep-trump-winning-you-bet

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. This could get *very* interesting.

[YabaDabaNoDinoNo]

2. It is very probable that both the GOP and Dem nominee could be selected by star chambers

Of each party with both group ignoring the voters

It would make for a very interesting election with a very large pissed off electorate in both parties

[jwirr]

3. Agreed. The only difference is that when done in the

Democratic Party they are going to find themselves in on hell of a lot of trouble. If they steel our election we will most likely rebel. No more business as usual.

[YabaDabaNoDinoNo]

6. Pubs would be just as pissed off maybe even more so. It is a question of basic fairness

Whomever gets the most votes wins. Anything else really pisses off Americans and it is one of the few things that unites us

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

4. If the nominees are selected suchly, I'm calling right now for a purge of incumbents in Congress. nt

[hedgehog]

5. I fully expect the GOP convention to be dead locked -

too many of the delegates will be true believers.

[YabaDabaNoDinoNo]

8. The smart congress critters would head for the hills the rest would be greeted by mobs with pitch

Forks and torches

[brooklynite]

7. You bet they can...and then they'll reap the unanticipated consequences

Remember back in the 60s when rancorous credentials battles occurred?

Remember back in the 70s when fights between "establishment" and "renegades" argued over platform planks and candidates didn't get elected until 2 in the morning?

Remember back in the 80s when Carter and Kennedy delegates fought over "first ballot" voting restrictions?

None of those things play well to the outside audience. A Presidential nominee doesn't wan't to be associated with chaos.