Monday, April 11, 2016

Colorado Cancels GOP Caucus (kind of). . . Hands Win to Cruz

By Douglas V. Gibbs

The Colorado GOP tweeted "We did it.  #NeverTrump," then quickly deleted it.

Could it be that the Republican Party machine in the State saw that Trump may win, and pulled the plug to stop it?  Could it be they could care less about what the voters want?  The Republican Party's will be done.

The voters didn't get to participate at all.  Their voice means nothing in Colorado.  This is the State that went to Santorum in the 2012 Election.  The Republicans weren't going to chance a Trump win, so they took it to the State Convention, where Cruz won all of the delegates.

I get it.  We are not a Democracy.  But we are not supposed to be an oligarchy, either, and this was the kind of move you would see from oligarchy ruling elites.

Confused?

Let's break it down.

The decision was actually made last year, but nobody seemed to see it coming.  Basically, the people's vote was cancelled, and the politically savvy were left to make the decision.  The idea was that if a brokered convention was on the horizon, Colorado's delegates would remained unbound - making them a valuable asset in such a situation.

When it went to State Convention, Cruz got the delegates, and Trump called it unfair.

Cruz captured all 34 delegates (37 when it goes to the national convention) at a series of seven congressional district meetings this month and the state party convention Saturday in Colorado Springs.

Knowing what was going on, Cruz's people worked behind the scenes to make it happen, without inexperienced Trump ever being the wiser.

With Marijuana being legal in Colorado, maybe they feared all of the caucus goers would be high - so they couldn't trust them.

To Trump Voters, this was an obvious elitist move by the party elite.  A message to the voters that the party plans to do what it wants, despite what the voters want.  "Take the candidate we decide to give you," seemed to be the message from the GOP.  "Like it, or not."  All it does is confirm to Trump Voters why they like Trump.  They are angry with the Republican Party's elitism, and this is an example of exactly what they are Trump Supporters.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Colorado Republicans Cancel Presidential Vote at 2016 Caucus - Denver Post

Angry Donald Trump Blasts Colorado GOP Results as "Totally Unfair" - Denver Post

Trump Erupts as Cruz Sweeps Colorado without Votes - World Net Daily

Colorado GOP hastily deletes 'Never Trump' tweet following sweeping Ted Cruz delegates victory - 7News Denver

6 comments:

JASmius said...

You know, Doug, I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt on your claim that you're not a Trump supporter (yet), but posts like this make that claim look like a deliberate insult to my intelligence.

What Colorado convention are you talking about? Here's an excerpt from a report to which you did NOT link:

"Pollster Pat Caddell has worked for candidates going as far back as George McGovern’s presidential campaign in 1972. In all this time, during which his politics have evolved into 'raging centrism,' he has never seen Americans so bent on upending the establishment. 'Politics in the United States today is a revolution, not a revolt,' he and co-authors Scott Miller and Bob Perkins wrote at the Huffington Post in February, predicting that 2016 would be 'an election of insurgency.' Evidence of this goes far beyond the Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders insurrections. Caddell’s February polling found that 70 percent of voters agree that the federal government today no longer has the consent of the people.

"79% want to support more candidates who are ordinary citizens rather than professional politicians and lawyers. A majority would join a third party if it had a chance to win. 77% prefer candidates who “take on the political elites and special interests” to those who conform to a fixed ideology.

"Caddell’s revolutionary moment could be seen up close and personal this weekend at the State convention of the Colorado Republican party in Colorado Springs. What happened was stunning. Ted Cruz, considered a fringe candidate by the media until four months ago, swept thirty-four of the thirty-seven delegate slots for the Cleveland convention. Donald Trump placed second, and there was scant support for any establishment figure."

Tea Party "Citizen-politicians" won in routes down-ballot as well (and will most likely get crushed in November, but that's another story). It looks to me like the "establishment" in Colorado got skunked. And yet here you are, putting a Trumplican "WE WUZ ROBBED!" spin on it.

Perhaps you're confusing "establishment" with "Republican," the latter of which does not apply to Trump.

JASmius said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
JASmius said...

Sorry, I found a more direct quote on how the Colorado process works after posting the now-deleted one.

From RealClearPolitics:

"Delegates in Colorado are selected through a process that starts with the March 1st caucuses and culminates at the State convention on April 9th. Colorado Delegates can go to the national convention as unbound or bound to a candidate."

So the caucuses were held six weeks ago, and Cruz so completely skunked Trump in organization and ground game that he was going to sweep Colorado's delegates regardless.

The Centennial State was always about organization and ground game. Ted Cruz did his due diligence, Donald Trump did not, and now he's engaged in his usual bitching and moaning. Because Donald Trump "never loses".

Well, this time, he did.

But I'm sure he'll be back to his braggadocios self a week from tomorrow in his home State.

Will you be cheering?

Douglas V. Gibbs said...

I was simply reporting the news, and found this interesting. Should I be like the mainstream media and only report what fits my fancy? If I don't, suddenly I'm a Trump fan? And regardless of who the candidate under fire is, or if we like them or not, should we not be concerned when the elite bend rules and play games to undermine a candidate that the voting public has a fancy for?

JASmius said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
JASmius said...

When is Blogger going to allow post-posting comment editing?

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But the "elite" didn't "bend" anything. The rules were established last September and were the same for everybody. Cruz actually bothered to learn them and played by them; Trump did neither and got shut out as a result. And then he did what he always does: whine and complain and smear the Colorado GOP, inspiring his supporters to barrage the head of the party with an avalanche of lies, vitriol, and death threats against him and his family. The stuff of the sort of "mobocracy" against which the Founding Fathers warned us.

The irony is that your post follows the "mainstream" media template of slanting towards the candidate you clearly favor (or against the Republican Party against which you're so clearly biased; I don't think there's a whole lot of difference anymore) by following the dishonest Trump party line on Colorado's results and not telling the ACTUAL story. Besides, do you really expect me to believe that the "elites" are in the tank for ***Ted Cruz***?