Delegates go to the Democratic and Republican conventions every four years to nominate candidates for president and vice president.
The Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia will have 4,764 delegates.
Pennsylvania has 21 superdelegates who can support the candidate of their choice, regardless of what happens in the primary. They are members of Congress and other elected officials, party leaders and members of the Democratic National Committee.
BTW...... Delegates & Superdelegates "can support the candidate of their choice, regardless of what happens in the primary"
Republican National Convention in Cleveland will have 2,472 delegates
Republican delegates on the ballot are uncommitted to presidential candidates, according to state party rules.
You thought your vote counted....
If your name is on ballot then it will! You can be voted in as a Delegate and get an all expense paid trip to Philadelphia or Cleveland Bowling^&%
The Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia will have 4,764 delegates.
Pennsylvania has 21 superdelegates who can support the candidate of their choice, regardless of what happens in the primary. They are members of Congress and other elected officials, party leaders and members of the Democratic National Committee.
BTW...... Delegates & Superdelegates "can support the candidate of their choice, regardless of what happens in the primary"
Republican National Convention in Cleveland will have 2,472 delegates
Republican delegates on the ballot are uncommitted to presidential candidates, according to state party rules.
You thought your vote counted....
If your name is on ballot then it will! You can be voted in as a Delegate and get an all expense paid trip to Philadelphia or Cleveland Bowling^&%
The best part about this list will be the hypocrites that will scurry back and support Drumpf if he becomes the R candidate. At least 50% of them will.
<header class="row_article article-header article_max" style="box-sizing: inherit; position: relative; max-width: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; border-top-style: none; padding-top: 1.125em; margin-bottom: 1.125em;">Meet the Republicans Speaking Out Against Trump
by CHRISTINA COLEBURN and ANNA MEROD
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Donald Trump's march to the Republican nomination has forced a crisis in the party, as a growing list of GOP elected officials and top strategists are stepping forward to declare their opposition to Trump's candidacy. Some are even threatening to vote for his Democratic rival instead come November. On Twitter, #NeverTrump has become a way for party stalwarts to voice their dissatisfaction.
Opposition to the billionaire front-runner had been boiling under the surface for weeks before bursting open in recent days after Trump initially refused to denounce former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke in an interview with CNN.
"If a person wants to be the nominee of the Republican Party, there can be no evasion and no games. They must reject any group or cause that is built on bigotry," House Speaker Paul Ryan said in a press conference Tuesday. While Ryan has stopped short of saying he would refuse to support Trump in the general election, other Republicans have shown no such hesitation.
<iframe id="video_mpx635327555528_17" width="585" height="100%" src="http://www.nbcnews.com/widget/pdkplayer?csid=nbcnews_politics_2016election§ion=politics&topic=2016-election&show=&storyline=&tags=&feature=#playerurl=http://www.nbcnews.com" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen="" border="no" scrolling="no" style="box-sizing: inherit; top: 0px; left: 0px; width: 584px; height: 328.5px; position: absolute; border-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; margin: 0px auto;"></iframe>Can Trump Repair His Relationship With the GOP Establishment? 1:06
Former GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney has arguably been the loudest voice against Trump. After warning of a potential "bombshell" in Trump's tax records, Romney tweeted "#WhatIsHeHiding" to press Trump to disclose his summaries. Romney took an even more forceful tone after Trump said he had no knowledge about former KKK leader David Duke, who, along with other white supremacists, are publicly supporting Trump's campaign. Romney called Trump's response "disqualifying" and said that "his coddling of repugnant bigotry is not in the character of America."
Romney is expected to further criticize Trump in a speech Thursday on the state of the 2016 race.
So far, more than 30 Republican lawmakers, strategists and commentators — who have had some strongly worded statements against Trump — have joined the resistance. MSNBC will continue to update the list.
1. Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.)
Sasse was the first Republican in Congress to announce he will never vote for Trump. On Facebook Sunday, he wrote, "My current answer for who I would support in a hypothetical matchup between Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton is: Neither of them. I sincerely hope we select one of the other GOP candidates, but if Donald Trump ends up as the GOP nominee, conservatives will need to find a third option."
2. Rep. Scott Rigell (R-Va.)
Rigell, who plans retire at the end of his current term representing Virginia, sent aletter to his supporters Monday night urging them to vote for any candidate besides Trump.
"My love for our country eclipses my loyalty to our party, and to live with a clear conscience I will not support a nominee so lacking in the judgement, temperament and character needed to be our nation's commander in chief. Accordingly, if left with no alternative, I will not support Trump in the general election should he become our Republican nominee," Rigell wrote.
3. Former Gov. Christie Todd Whitman (R-NJ)
"While I certainly don't want four more years of another Clinton administration or more years of the Obama administration, I would take that over the kind of damage I think Donald Trump could do to this country, to its reputation, to the people of this country," Whitman said Monday on Bloomberg's "With All Due Respect."
When asked if Whitman would explicitly support Clinton over Trump, she said that it's likely. "I will probably vote for her," Whitman said. "I don't want to. I can do a write-in. But I think that's where I'd go if those are my choices."
4. Tim Miller, former spokesman for Jeb Bush, part of anti-Trump super PAC
After Chris Christie, who ended his 2016 presidential campaign following disappointing results in New Hampshire, announced his support for Trump on Friday, Miller took to Twitter trashing the pair.
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Miller also posted to Facebook on Super Tuesday, begging his followers to "please for the love of God go vote in the Republican primary against Trump," and pledged to stop Trump while speaking to MSNBC's Chris Jansing Wednesday.
"He's not looking out for the little guy, he's selling them out for his own benefit,"Miller said. "He's not a conservative. This is a person who's flip-flopped on every major issue, and there is still time to stop him… I would never vote for Donald Trump."
5. Mark Salter, former aide and speechwriter for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.)
In a January Esquire piece titled "We Deserve Better Than Donald Trump," Salter wrote about his distaste for the front-runner.
"Are we in such dire straits that we must dispense with civility, kindness, tolerance and normal decency to put a mean-spirited, lying jerk in the White House?" Salter wrote. "Of course, were Trump to succumb to a rare bout of honesty, he would confess he thinks we're all just suckers. I hope we're both proved wrong. I really do. Because right now that a**hole is making us all look bad."
Salter reiterated his stance in a Facebook post Sunday: "I will vote for Marco Rubio in the VA primary Tuesday, and, of course, I will proudly and with enormous relief vote for him again if he's our nominee. I will vote for Hillary Clinton without hesitation if the Fascist quoting, friend of the Klan, Donald Trump is the GOP nominee."
6. Meg Whitman, Hewlett-Packard CEO and former national finance co-chair of Chris Christie's campaign
Two days after Christie surprised the Republican establishment by endorsing Trump during a press conference in Texas, Whitman strongly condemned both the man she formerly supported and Trump in a statement. "Donald Trump is unfit to be president," she wrote. "The governor is mistaken if he believes he can now count on my support, and I call on Christie's donors and supporters to reject the governor and Donald Trump outright. I believe they will. For some of us, principle and country still matter."
7. Glenn Beck, conservative commentator
On Sunday, Beck tweeted a photo next to Republican candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tx) while simultaneously denouncing Trump.
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Beck has spoken out against Trump on the charge that the front-runner lacks true conservative bona fides. In a piece for The National Review titled "Conservatives against Trump," published in January, Beck wrote, "Sure, Trump's potential primary victory would provide Hillary Clinton with the easiest imaginable path to the White House. But it's far worse than that. If Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination, there will once again be no opposition to an ever-expanding government. This is a crisis for conservatism. And, once again, this crisis will not go to waste."
8. Peter Wehner, GOP strategist
"Beginning with Ronald Reagan, I have voted Republican in every presidential election since I first became eligible to vote in 1980. I worked in the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations and in the White House for George W. Bush as a speechwriter and adviser," Wehner wrote January 14 in an op-ed for The New York Times. "Despite this history, and in important ways because of it, I will not vote for Donald Trump if he wins the Republican nomination."
9. Liz Mair, GOP strategist
"I have repeatedly stated that if he is the GOP nominee, I will either vote third party or do a write-in, potentially of myself," Mair wrote in a statement about Trump to The New Yorker published Friday. "At least if I do the latter thing, I know I'm voting for someone I 100 percent agree with for once."
10. Eliot Cohen, counselor of the Department of State during President George W. Bush's administration
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Cohen clarified that he would vote for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton over Trump if those were his only options. He also organized a responsevia open letter that was signed by 60 members of the Republican national security community "united in our opposition to a Donald Trump presidency."
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"Mr. Trump's own statements lead us to conclude that as president, he would use the authority of his office to act in ways that make America less safe, and which would diminish our standing in the world," the letter reads. "Furthermore, his expansive view of how presidential power should be wielded against his detractors poses a distinct threat to civil liberty in the United States."
11. Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard
"Couldn't vote for Trump, couldn't vote for Hillary," Kristol told The Daily Caller in an email published December 1. Kristol later told The New Yorker on Friday that he would like to see another conservative candidate run against Trump if he becomes the nominee. "I've been Sherman-esque—and more!," he wrote to The New Yorker in an email, "since I've said I would try to recruit a real conservative to run as a fourth (Bloomberg being the third) party candidate."
12. Erick Erickson, conservative commentator, former editor of RedState, founder of The Resurgent
Erickson first criticized Trump last August after the businessman remarked that Fox News' Megyn Kelly"had blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever" when she questioned him during a debate about his treatment of women. Erickson, saying he was drawing a distinction between Trump's war on "political correctness" and "common decency," has not changed his opinion —if anything, it has hardened.
"I have become convinced that Donald Trump's pro-life conversion is a conversion of convenience. Life is the foremost cause in how I vote. Therefore I will not be voting for Donald Trump at all. Ever," Erickson wrote in a post on The Resurgent last month. "Frankly, if Trump is able to get the nomination, the Republican Party will cease to be the party in which I served as an elected official."
(Erickson served one term as a Republican member of the city council in Macon, Georgia.)
<iframe id="video_mpx635323459922_17" width="585" height="100%" src="http://www.nbcnews.com/widget/pdkplayer?csid=nbcnews_politics_2016election§ion=politics&topic=2016-election&show=&storyline=&tags=&feature=#playerurl=http://www.nbcnews.com" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen="" border="no" scrolling="no" style="box-sizing: inherit; top: 0px; left: 0px; width: 584px; height: 328.5px; position: absolute; border-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; margin: 0px auto;"></iframe>GOP Leaders Revolt After Trump Wins Big on Super Tuesday3:20
13. Steve Deace, conservative commentator and radio talk show host
"On national television Sunday morning, the current front-runner for the Republican Party's presidential nomination refused to disavow being publicly supported by racists not once, not twice, but three times,"Deace wrote Monday in a post for the Conservative Review. "Just another in a multitude of reasons why I will #NeverTrump - even if he is the Republican nominee."
14. Susana Martinez, New Mexico governor
New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez won't commit to voting for Donald Trump if he is the Republican presidential nominee. But the chair of the Republican Governors Association and the nation's only Latina governor said Tuesday she's "definitely not" voting for Democratic hopefuls Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.
15. Rick Wilson, Republican operative
Put bluntly in his own words: "I will never vote for Donald Trump, not even if he's the Republican nominee. I will never vote for Donald Trump, not even if Ronald Reagan and William F. Buckley rise from the grave and beg me to support him. I will never vote for Donald Trump, not even if it means he forms a third party and runs as the narcissist sociopath he truly is."
16. Stuart Stevens, top strategist, Romney 2012
He wondered about a "support group" for "those not threatened by thuggish trust funder" Donald Trump. "Getting to be a small group," he tweeted.
17. Kevin Madden, former Mitt Romney communications director
Madden, like some of his peers, said he could never vote for Trump. If Trump is the nominee, he said, "I'm prepared to write somebody in so that I have a clear conscience."
18. Ken Cuccinelli, president of the Senate Conservatives Fund
The 2013 Senate candidate said Trump's embrace of rhetoric by fascist dictator Benito Mussolini led him to oppose Trump. When NBC's Chuck Todd asked Trump why he had re-tweeted the quote, Trumpresponded, "What difference does it make whether it's Mussolini or somebody else?"
Cuccinelli expressed his distaste for the re-tweets to the Wall Street Journal. "When you've got a guy favorably quoting Mussolini, I don't care what party you're in, I'm not voting for that guy," Cuccinelli said. "Donald Trump, it's like he's trying to make it difficult for anyone… to support him."
19. Karl Rove, Republican operative
Rove, a longtime skeptic of Trump, has downplayed his dominance in the pollsand likened him to GOP Senate candidate Todd Akin in a July 2015 op-ed in theWall Street Journal. "Mr. Trump could become the 2016 version of Missouri Rep. Todd Akin, who tarnished the GOP brand in 2012 with an offensive statement about rape," Rove wrote. "Republican leaders from Mitt Romney on down immediately condemned his words, but swing voters were persuaded that every Republican believed what Mr. Akin said."
Rove has continued to opine about the best ways to beat Trump in the Wall Street Journal.
20. David McIntosh, president of Club for Growth
The president of the conservative political advocacy group attacked Trump as "the worst kind of politician"and questioned his Republican credentials. "He's playing them for chumps," McIntosh said. "They'll believe anything he says, when in fact the record shows he's done just the opposite. He believes just the opposite."
McIntosh's Club for Growth has ramped up its anti-Trump advertising with million dollar buys in key states like Florida.
21. John Podhoretz, editor of Commentary
On Bloomberg's "With All Due Respect," Podhoretz said it was not possible for Trump to be a good or great president, and citing Trump's defense of Vladimir Putin and trade policies, Podhoretz added that "a man of his extraordinarily flawed character, and lack of principle and scruple… would be nothing less than a disaster" as commander-in-chief.
22. Thomas Sowell, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution
The libertarian economist referred to Trump as a "glib egomaniac" in a National Review issue that made the ideological case against Trump's nomination. Citing the stakes of the election, Sowell maintained that a "shoot-from-the-hip, belligerent show-off is the last thing we need or can afford."
23. L. Brent Bozell III, president of the Media Research Center
The conservative activist said of Trump on Fox News, "God helps this country if this man were president." He also labeled the businessman a "shameless self-promoter" and "huckster" before saying that conservative icon William F. Buckley would "never support his candidacy."
24. Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.)
The Florida congressman said he would back a write-in or third-party candidate rather than Trump. "This man does things and says things that I teach my six- and three-year-olds not to say," Curbelo said in an interview. "I could never look them in the eye and tell them that I support someone so crass and insulting and offensive to lead the greatest nation in the world."
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GOP Senator: 'I Cannot Support Donald Trump' 15:31
25. Former Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.)
Martinez did not hold back when criticizing the GOP front-runner. "I would not vote for Trump, clearly" he said, according to reporting by the Wall Street Journal. "If there is any, any, any other choice, a living, breathing person with a pulse, I would be there."
26. Ken Mehlman, former Republican National Committee chairman
Mehlman, who ran Pres. George W. Bush's re-election campaign, tweeted his scorn for Trump on Monday. "Leaders don't need to do research to reject Klan support #NeverTrump," he posted, linking to a New York Times article in which Pres. Ronald Reagan spurned the KKK.
27. Former Rep. J.C. Watts (R-Okla.)
The former Oklahoma congressman predicted "a tremendous setback for the party" if Trump wins. Watts also had harsh words for some of Trump's rivals. "All these guys who are beating him up now, if he asks them to be his running mate, they'll jump in in a New York minute," Watts said, according to the Wall StreetJournal.
28. Gov. Charlie Baker (R-Mass.)
The GOP governor of Massachusetts toldBoston Globe reporters Wednesday that he did not vote for Trump on Super Tuesday and "I'm not going to vote for him in November." When journalists asked if Baker hoped that a worthy third-party candidate would rise to face Trump, Baker responded, "I'm not willing to concede that the Republican nomination is over and, frankly, you know, you guys shouldn't either."
Listen to Baker explain his views on Trump here.
29. Sarah Isgur Flores, former deputy campaign manager at Carly for President
The former RNC deputy communications director floated the idea of a convention showdown to MSNBC's Chris Jansing. "I will certainly hope for a contested convention, and if not I hope that someone will offer an alternative," she said.
30. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), former 2016 presidential candidate
Graham continually voiced his opposition to Trump throughout his since-suspended presidential bid, and then offered his support to Jeb Bush before he dropped out. The senator has grim predictions for Trump's rise, insisting that the GOP is "gonna lose to Hillary Clinton" if he prevails in the primary. At the Congressional Dinner on February 26, Graham took his assessment of Trump's success even further: "My party has gone bats**t crazy."
<header class="row_article article-header article_max" style="box-sizing: inherit; position: relative; max-width: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; border-top-style: none; padding-top: 1.125em; margin-bottom: 1.125em;">Meet the Republicans Speaking Out Against Trump
by CHRISTINA COLEBURN and ANNA MEROD
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Donald Trump's march to the Republican nomination has forced a crisis in the party, as a growing list of GOP elected officials and top strategists are stepping forward to declare their opposition to Trump's candidacy. Some are even threatening to vote for his Democratic rival instead come November. On Twitter, #NeverTrump has become a way for party stalwarts to voice their dissatisfaction.
Opposition to the billionaire front-runner had been boiling under the surface for weeks before bursting open in recent days after Trump initially refused to denounce former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke in an interview with CNN.
"If a person wants to be the nominee of the Republican Party, there can be no evasion and no games. They must reject any group or cause that is built on bigotry," House Speaker Paul Ryan said in a press conference Tuesday. While Ryan has stopped short of saying he would refuse to support Trump in the general election, other Republicans have shown no such hesitation.
<iframe id="video_mpx635327555528_17" width="585" height="100%" src="http://www.nbcnews.com/widget/pdkplayer?csid=nbcnews_politics_2016election§ion=politics&topic=2016-election&show=&storyline=&tags=&feature=#playerurl=http://www.nbcnews.com" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen="" border="no" scrolling="no" style="box-sizing: inherit; top: 0px; left: 0px; width: 584px; height: 328.5px; position: absolute; border-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; margin: 0px auto;"></iframe>Can Trump Repair His Relationship With the GOP Establishment? 1:06
Former GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney has arguably been the loudest voice against Trump. After warning of a potential "bombshell" in Trump's tax records, Romney tweeted "#WhatIsHeHiding" to press Trump to disclose his summaries. Romney took an even more forceful tone after Trump said he had no knowledge about former KKK leader David Duke, who, along with other white supremacists, are publicly supporting Trump's campaign. Romney called Trump's response "disqualifying" and said that "his coddling of repugnant bigotry is not in the character of America."
Romney is expected to further criticize Trump in a speech Thursday on the state of the 2016 race.
So far, more than 30 Republican lawmakers, strategists and commentators — who have had some strongly worded statements against Trump — have joined the resistance. MSNBC will continue to update the list.
1. Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.)
Sasse was the first Republican in Congress to announce he will never vote for Trump. On Facebook Sunday, he wrote, "My current answer for who I would support in a hypothetical matchup between Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton is: Neither of them. I sincerely hope we select one of the other GOP candidates, but if Donald Trump ends up as the GOP nominee, conservatives will need to find a third option."
2. Rep. Scott Rigell (R-Va.)
Rigell, who plans retire at the end of his current term representing Virginia, sent aletter to his supporters Monday night urging them to vote for any candidate besides Trump.
"My love for our country eclipses my loyalty to our party, and to live with a clear conscience I will not support a nominee so lacking in the judgement, temperament and character needed to be our nation's commander in chief. Accordingly, if left with no alternative, I will not support Trump in the general election should he become our Republican nominee," Rigell wrote.
3. Former Gov. Christie Todd Whitman (R-NJ)
"While I certainly don't want four more years of another Clinton administration or more years of the Obama administration, I would take that over the kind of damage I think Donald Trump could do to this country, to its reputation, to the people of this country," Whitman said Monday on Bloomberg's "With All Due Respect."
When asked if Whitman would explicitly support Clinton over Trump, she said that it's likely. "I will probably vote for her," Whitman said. "I don't want to. I can do a write-in. But I think that's where I'd go if those are my choices."
4. Tim Miller, former spokesman for Jeb Bush, part of anti-Trump super PAC
After Chris Christie, who ended his 2016 presidential campaign following disappointing results in New Hampshire, announced his support for Trump on Friday, Miller took to Twitter trashing the pair.
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Miller also posted to Facebook on Super Tuesday, begging his followers to "please for the love of God go vote in the Republican primary against Trump," and pledged to stop Trump while speaking to MSNBC's Chris Jansing Wednesday.
"He's not looking out for the little guy, he's selling them out for his own benefit,"Miller said. "He's not a conservative. This is a person who's flip-flopped on every major issue, and there is still time to stop him… I would never vote for Donald Trump."
5. Mark Salter, former aide and speechwriter for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.)
In a January Esquire piece titled "We Deserve Better Than Donald Trump," Salter wrote about his distaste for the front-runner.
"Are we in such dire straits that we must dispense with civility, kindness, tolerance and normal decency to put a mean-spirited, lying jerk in the White House?" Salter wrote. "Of course, were Trump to succumb to a rare bout of honesty, he would confess he thinks we're all just suckers. I hope we're both proved wrong. I really do. Because right now that a**hole is making us all look bad."
Salter reiterated his stance in a Facebook post Sunday: "I will vote for Marco Rubio in the VA primary Tuesday, and, of course, I will proudly and with enormous relief vote for him again if he's our nominee. I will vote for Hillary Clinton without hesitation if the Fascist quoting, friend of the Klan, Donald Trump is the GOP nominee."
6. Meg Whitman, Hewlett-Packard CEO and former national finance co-chair of Chris Christie's campaign
Two days after Christie surprised the Republican establishment by endorsing Trump during a press conference in Texas, Whitman strongly condemned both the man she formerly supported and Trump in a statement. "Donald Trump is unfit to be president," she wrote. "The governor is mistaken if he believes he can now count on my support, and I call on Christie's donors and supporters to reject the governor and Donald Trump outright. I believe they will. For some of us, principle and country still matter."
7. Glenn Beck, conservative commentator
On Sunday, Beck tweeted a photo next to Republican candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tx) while simultaneously denouncing Trump.
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Beck has spoken out against Trump on the charge that the front-runner lacks true conservative bona fides. In a piece for The National Review titled "Conservatives against Trump," published in January, Beck wrote, "Sure, Trump's potential primary victory would provide Hillary Clinton with the easiest imaginable path to the White House. But it's far worse than that. If Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination, there will once again be no opposition to an ever-expanding government. This is a crisis for conservatism. And, once again, this crisis will not go to waste."
8. Peter Wehner, GOP strategist
"Beginning with Ronald Reagan, I have voted Republican in every presidential election since I first became eligible to vote in 1980. I worked in the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations and in the White House for George W. Bush as a speechwriter and adviser," Wehner wrote January 14 in an op-ed for The New York Times. "Despite this history, and in important ways because of it, I will not vote for Donald Trump if he wins the Republican nomination."
9. Liz Mair, GOP strategist
"I have repeatedly stated that if he is the GOP nominee, I will either vote third party or do a write-in, potentially of myself," Mair wrote in a statement about Trump to The New Yorker published Friday. "At least if I do the latter thing, I know I'm voting for someone I 100 percent agree with for once."
10. Eliot Cohen, counselor of the Department of State during President George W. Bush's administration
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Cohen clarified that he would vote for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton over Trump if those were his only options. He also organized a responsevia open letter that was signed by 60 members of the Republican national security community "united in our opposition to a Donald Trump presidency."
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"Mr. Trump's own statements lead us to conclude that as president, he would use the authority of his office to act in ways that make America less safe, and which would diminish our standing in the world," the letter reads. "Furthermore, his expansive view of how presidential power should be wielded against his detractors poses a distinct threat to civil liberty in the United States."
11. Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard
"Couldn't vote for Trump, couldn't vote for Hillary," Kristol told The Daily Caller in an email published December 1. Kristol later told The New Yorker on Friday that he would like to see another conservative candidate run against Trump if he becomes the nominee. "I've been Sherman-esque—and more!," he wrote to The New Yorker in an email, "since I've said I would try to recruit a real conservative to run as a fourth (Bloomberg being the third) party candidate."
12. Erick Erickson, conservative commentator, former editor of RedState, founder of The Resurgent
Erickson first criticized Trump last August after the businessman remarked that Fox News' Megyn Kelly"had blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever" when she questioned him during a debate about his treatment of women. Erickson, saying he was drawing a distinction between Trump's war on "political correctness" and "common decency," has not changed his opinion —if anything, it has hardened.
"I have become convinced that Donald Trump's pro-life conversion is a conversion of convenience. Life is the foremost cause in how I vote. Therefore I will not be voting for Donald Trump at all. Ever," Erickson wrote in a post on The Resurgent last month. "Frankly, if Trump is able to get the nomination, the Republican Party will cease to be the party in which I served as an elected official."
(Erickson served one term as a Republican member of the city council in Macon, Georgia.)
<iframe id="video_mpx635323459922_17" width="585" height="100%" src="http://www.nbcnews.com/widget/pdkplayer?csid=nbcnews_politics_2016election§ion=politics&topic=2016-election&show=&storyline=&tags=&feature=#playerurl=http://www.nbcnews.com" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen="" border="no" scrolling="no" style="box-sizing: inherit; top: 0px; left: 0px; width: 584px; height: 328.5px; position: absolute; border-style: none; border-width: initial; display: block; margin: 0px auto;"></iframe>GOP Leaders Revolt After Trump Wins Big on Super Tuesday3:20
13. Steve Deace, conservative commentator and radio talk show host
"On national television Sunday morning, the current front-runner for the Republican Party's presidential nomination refused to disavow being publicly supported by racists not once, not twice, but three times,"Deace wrote Monday in a post for the Conservative Review. "Just another in a multitude of reasons why I will #NeverTrump - even if he is the Republican nominee."
14. Susana Martinez, New Mexico governor
New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez won't commit to voting for Donald Trump if he is the Republican presidential nominee. But the chair of the Republican Governors Association and the nation's only Latina governor said Tuesday she's "definitely not" voting for Democratic hopefuls Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.
15. Rick Wilson, Republican operative
Put bluntly in his own words: "I will never vote for Donald Trump, not even if he's the Republican nominee. I will never vote for Donald Trump, not even if Ronald Reagan and William F. Buckley rise from the grave and beg me to support him. I will never vote for Donald Trump, not even if it means he forms a third party and runs as the narcissist sociopath he truly is."
16. Stuart Stevens, top strategist, Romney 2012
He wondered about a "support group" for "those not threatened by thuggish trust funder" Donald Trump. "Getting to be a small group," he tweeted.
17. Kevin Madden, former Mitt Romney communications director
Madden, like some of his peers, said he could never vote for Trump. If Trump is the nominee, he said, "I'm prepared to write somebody in so that I have a clear conscience."
18. Ken Cuccinelli, president of the Senate Conservatives Fund
The 2013 Senate candidate said Trump's embrace of rhetoric by fascist dictator Benito Mussolini led him to oppose Trump. When NBC's Chuck Todd asked Trump why he had re-tweeted the quote, Trumpresponded, "What difference does it make whether it's Mussolini or somebody else?"
Cuccinelli expressed his distaste for the re-tweets to the Wall Street Journal. "When you've got a guy favorably quoting Mussolini, I don't care what party you're in, I'm not voting for that guy," Cuccinelli said. "Donald Trump, it's like he's trying to make it difficult for anyone… to support him."
19. Karl Rove, Republican operative
Rove, a longtime skeptic of Trump, has downplayed his dominance in the pollsand likened him to GOP Senate candidate Todd Akin in a July 2015 op-ed in theWall Street Journal. "Mr. Trump could become the 2016 version of Missouri Rep. Todd Akin, who tarnished the GOP brand in 2012 with an offensive statement about rape," Rove wrote. "Republican leaders from Mitt Romney on down immediately condemned his words, but swing voters were persuaded that every Republican believed what Mr. Akin said."
Rove has continued to opine about the best ways to beat Trump in the Wall Street Journal.
20. David McIntosh, president of Club for Growth
The president of the conservative political advocacy group attacked Trump as "the worst kind of politician"and questioned his Republican credentials. "He's playing them for chumps," McIntosh said. "They'll believe anything he says, when in fact the record shows he's done just the opposite. He believes just the opposite."
McIntosh's Club for Growth has ramped up its anti-Trump advertising with million dollar buys in key states like Florida.
21. John Podhoretz, editor of Commentary
On Bloomberg's "With All Due Respect," Podhoretz said it was not possible for Trump to be a good or great president, and citing Trump's defense of Vladimir Putin and trade policies, Podhoretz added that "a man of his extraordinarily flawed character, and lack of principle and scruple… would be nothing less than a disaster" as commander-in-chief.
22. Thomas Sowell, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution
The libertarian economist referred to Trump as a "glib egomaniac" in a National Review issue that made the ideological case against Trump's nomination. Citing the stakes of the election, Sowell maintained that a "shoot-from-the-hip, belligerent show-off is the last thing we need or can afford."
23. L. Brent Bozell III, president of the Media Research Center
The conservative activist said of Trump on Fox News, "God helps this country if this man were president." He also labeled the businessman a "shameless self-promoter" and "huckster" before saying that conservative icon William F. Buckley would "never support his candidacy."
24. Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.)
The Florida congressman said he would back a write-in or third-party candidate rather than Trump. "This man does things and says things that I teach my six- and three-year-olds not to say," Curbelo said in an interview. "I could never look them in the eye and tell them that I support someone so crass and insulting and offensive to lead the greatest nation in the world."
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GOP Senator: 'I Cannot Support Donald Trump' 15:31
25. Former Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.)
Martinez did not hold back when criticizing the GOP front-runner. "I would not vote for Trump, clearly" he said, according to reporting by the Wall Street Journal. "If there is any, any, any other choice, a living, breathing person with a pulse, I would be there."
26. Ken Mehlman, former Republican National Committee chairman
Mehlman, who ran Pres. George W. Bush's re-election campaign, tweeted his scorn for Trump on Monday. "Leaders don't need to do research to reject Klan support #NeverTrump," he posted, linking to a New York Times article in which Pres. Ronald Reagan spurned the KKK.
27. Former Rep. J.C. Watts (R-Okla.)
The former Oklahoma congressman predicted "a tremendous setback for the party" if Trump wins. Watts also had harsh words for some of Trump's rivals. "All these guys who are beating him up now, if he asks them to be his running mate, they'll jump in in a New York minute," Watts said, according to the Wall StreetJournal.
28. Gov. Charlie Baker (R-Mass.)
The GOP governor of Massachusetts toldBoston Globe reporters Wednesday that he did not vote for Trump on Super Tuesday and "I'm not going to vote for him in November." When journalists asked if Baker hoped that a worthy third-party candidate would rise to face Trump, Baker responded, "I'm not willing to concede that the Republican nomination is over and, frankly, you know, you guys shouldn't either."
Listen to Baker explain his views on Trump here.
29. Sarah Isgur Flores, former deputy campaign manager at Carly for President
The former RNC deputy communications director floated the idea of a convention showdown to MSNBC's Chris Jansing. "I will certainly hope for a contested convention, and if not I hope that someone will offer an alternative," she said.
30. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), former 2016 presidential candidate
Graham continually voiced his opposition to Trump throughout his since-suspended presidential bid, and then offered his support to Jeb Bush before he dropped out. The senator has grim predictions for Trump's rise, insisting that the GOP is "gonna lose to Hillary Clinton" if he prevails in the primary. At the Congressional Dinner on February 26, Graham took his assessment of Trump's success even further: "My party has gone bats**t crazy."
This is how Saint Ronnie handled a similar flap when the KKK supported him. It's a model that Donnie should have followed.
http://www.nytimes.com/1984/05/02/us/reagan-spurns-klan-support.html
REAGAN SPURNS KLAN SUPPORT
UPI
Published: May 2, 1984
WASHINGTON, May 1— President Reagan, saying he had ''no tolerance'' for what the Ku Klux Klan represented, today repudiated the group's endorsement.
In a letter to the United States Commission on Civil Rights, the President said:
''Those of us in public life can only resent the use of our names by those who seek political recognition for the repugnant doctrines of hate they espouse.
''The politics of racial hatred and religious bigotry practiced by the Klan and others have no place in this country, and are destructive of the values for which America has always stood.''
A White House spokesman, Anson Frank, said that the President signed the letter while in China and that it was delivered today to Morris B. Abram, a Civil Rights Commission member who requested it after reading news reports that Klan leaders in Georgia had endorsed Mr. Reagan. Endorsement Last Month
When the Klan endorsement was first reported last month, neither the White House nor the President's re- election campaign committee would comment on it.
In his letter to Mr. Abram, the President said: ''While in China, I have been distressed to learn that some individuals back home have questioned whether my views on the Ku Klux Klan have somehow changed since 1980. Nothing could be further from the truth.''
http://www.nytimes.com/1984/05/02/us/reagan-spurns-klan-support.html
REAGAN SPURNS KLAN SUPPORT
UPI
Published: May 2, 1984
WASHINGTON, May 1— President Reagan, saying he had ''no tolerance'' for what the Ku Klux Klan represented, today repudiated the group's endorsement.
In a letter to the United States Commission on Civil Rights, the President said:
''Those of us in public life can only resent the use of our names by those who seek political recognition for the repugnant doctrines of hate they espouse.
''The politics of racial hatred and religious bigotry practiced by the Klan and others have no place in this country, and are destructive of the values for which America has always stood.''
A White House spokesman, Anson Frank, said that the President signed the letter while in China and that it was delivered today to Morris B. Abram, a Civil Rights Commission member who requested it after reading news reports that Klan leaders in Georgia had endorsed Mr. Reagan. Endorsement Last Month
When the Klan endorsement was first reported last month, neither the White House nor the President's re- election campaign committee would comment on it.
In his letter to Mr. Abram, the President said: ''While in China, I have been distressed to learn that some individuals back home have questioned whether my views on the Ku Klux Klan have somehow changed since 1980. Nothing could be further from the truth.''
Sure they are. They created him. Now they reap what they sowed. Bull O and Hannity and the idiots in the Morning have him on constantly and kiss hiss butt.
LOOK IN THE MIRROR
08.11.15 1:00 AM ET
Fox News Created the Trump Monster
They’ve only got themselves to blame. How the billionaire egoist is the creation of the network now trying to destroy him.
Okay, so as I write these words, someone could be about to release a post-debate poll showing exactly what establishment Washington, which now apparently includes evenFox News (!), yearns to see a poll show—that Donald Trump has tumbled, and that the new leaders in the GOP field are the comparatively sober Jeb Bush and John Kasich, along with maybe Carly Fiorina, since everybody seems to be swooning over her now. Maybe it’ll happen.
But what in fact did happen is that we got this NBC News-Survey Monkey poll showing Trump still ahead and Ted Cruz and Ben Carson vaulting into second and third place, respectively. It’s an online poll, and I know we’re supposed to question its methodology (which the pollsters explain here, if you’re interested). So I’m not going to sit here and swear by it. But on Monday, two other post-debate polls came along showing that Trump is still going strong. So the results are interesting enough, and they track closely enough with other anecdotal evidence that’s made its way to my inbox, that it’s certainly worth asking: What if Trump is still clobbering the rest of the GOP field?
If he is, we’re at a very interesting politico-cultural moment: The moment when, to a sizeable portion of the GOP electorate, Fox News stopped being their warrior and instead became just another arm of the lamestream media. If that’s true, everything we’ve known and assumed about our political divide is now moot, and we’re flying totally blind. The Republican Party has unleashed furies it can no longer remotely control.
First, here are the numbers, if you haven’t seen them. Post-poll, Trump went to 23 percent, according to NBC. That’s actually a gain of one statistically insignificant point, but reflect on this: He gained that point even though poll respondents said by a huge margin that he lost the debate (29 percent called him the loser; next closest was Rand Paul at 14 percent). Ted Cruz gained seven points, going from 6 to 13 percent. Ben Carson gained three points, moving from 8 to 11 percent. Marco Rubio stayed flat at 8 percent, and Jeb Bush and Scott Walker, the other “first-tier” candidates, finished in the cellar, losing three points each.
So add it up. The Tasmanian Devil candidate who’s obviously tapping into deep right-wing anti-establishment anger and the two other most extreme candidates combine for 47 percent. The two who in my view you can reasonably call quasi- or comparatively moderate, Kasich and Bush, combine to hit 9 percent.
All right, though, enough on the polls. Maybe enough time hasn’t elapsed for Trump’s Megyn Kelly comments to truly sink in with the Republican electorate. But here’s the anecdotal materials that suggests he’s still on the rise. First, which candidates were most heavily Googled during the debate? Huh. What a coincidence. It was Trump, Carson, and Cruz. The biggest single Google moment by a mile came during Cruz’s first remarks (“If you’re looking for someone to go to Washington, to go along to get along, to get—to agree with the career politicians in both parties who get in bed with the lobbyists and special interests, then I ain’t your guy.”) Carson scored well while talking terrorism and during his close, and Trump throughout.
Here’s a little more. I was on Fox on Sunday, on Howard Kurtz’s show. Every time I finish that show, I have 30 or so tweets in my feed. Usually, the tweeters are angry at me, for the obvious reasons. But Sunday, they were mostly mad at The Blaze’sAmy Holmes for her robust defenses of Megyn Kelly and attacks on Trump. This tweet, while more polite than most, is representative of the argument. Trump isn’t perfect, but lay off him already. Fox screwed up. And most of all: Don’t tell us what to think!
We’re used to this kind of rhetoric when conservatives volley it in the direction of The New York Times and CNN. But what are we to make of it when the target is Fox?
Two things. First, if I’m right about this and other polls back all this up, this process is officially beyond anyone’s ability to predict. Ignore all “surely this will finally start Trump’s downfall” stories, and all positive Jeb! stories. And is Cruz soon-to-be first tier? I admit that I sure missed that. I didn’t think he registered a heartbeat in the debate. It’s hardly remarkable that I was wrong about something, but most commentators pretty much dismissed Cruz, too.
And Carson! It’s not like he comes out of nowhere. They’ve been selling his first book by the truckful in Christian bookstores for years, and for gosh sakes, Cuba Gooding Jr. played him in a movie. But normally that would translate into a respectable sixth or seventh place. If he’s really doing better than that, something important has changed. And don’t ignore what an extremist he is: In his more recent book, which I actually read, he sincerely questioned whether citizens who pay no net income tax should have the right to vote—“Serious problems arise when a person who pays nothing has the right to vote and determine what other people are paying.”
The second thing we’re to make of this is that Fox and the Republican Party have created this new reality. When you spend years nodding and winking and yuk-yuking about the President’s birth certificate, how can you be surprised when the guy who has repeatedly demanded to see it turns out to be really popular with your base? You promote a politics that attacks women not merely for having abortions but for wanting to use contraception, and then you’re shocked when your hard-shell voting base turns out not to be overly offended by remarks like Trump’s?
Indeed Roger Ailes recognized all this when he decided to make nice with Trump on Monday. In the first instance Ailes did it because Trump has leverage, and The Donald’s threat not to go on his air meant a heavy hit in the ratings department. Ailes was also certainly feeling the blowback from his core audience--the kinds of tweets I alluded to above. And beyond all that, somewhere deeper down, Ailes knows that Fox made Trump, politically, and that the two are made for each other.
The Republican Party and Fox permitted and encouraged Trumpian vitriol for years. All that talk over the years about birth certificates and Kenya and terrorist fist-jabs (remember that one?!) and the moocher class and the scary brown people and all the rest of it...all of it created a need for a Trump, and for other Trump-like candidates, to flourish. Now it threatens to overtake them. If they’re wondering who created Trumpism, I have someplace they can look. The mirror.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/08/11/fox-news-created-the-trump-monster.html
Trumps slowness in denouncing the Klan was ridiculous. I love how he played dumb like he didn't know who David Duke was. Plus these bigots and racists are still hanging out at his political rally's. As we saw today in that ugly video. The whole thing is really an embarassement. I can't imagine what the other countries are thinking about us right now.
