Brokered Baby, Brokered!!!!
Paul Ryan won't categorically rule out accepting GOP nom
John Harwood | @johnjharwood
7 Hours AgoCNBC.com
In an exclusive interview with CNBC's John Harwood, House Speaker Paul Ryan declined to rule out accepting the Republican nomination if neither Trump nor any of his rivals has a majority of delegates at the GOP convention in Cleveland this summer.
House Speaker Paul Ryan decided not to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, but he declined to rule out accepting it if a deadlocked party convention turns to him this summer.
"You know, I haven't given any thought to this stuff,
" Ryan said Tuesday night in an exclusive interview at the Capitol. "People say, 'What about the contested convention?' I say, well, there are a lot of people running for president. We'll see. Who knows."
Getty Images
U.S. Speaker of the House Rep. Paul Ryan
Ryan, who ran in 2012 as Mitt Romney's vice presidential nominee, has taken no public actions to encourage the idea that he could become a candidate. To the contrary, a political committee set up to draft him into the 2016 race recently shut down at the urging of the speaker's aides.
"I actually think you should run for president if you're going to be president, if you want to be president," Ryan said in the interview. "I'm not running for president. I made that decision, consciously, not to."
Yet Donald Trump, even as he has established himself as the clear front-runner in the Republican race, still faces a challenge in rounding up the 1,237 delegates he needs to be nominated on the first ballot at the Republican convention in Cleveland. Trump's challenge was steepened by Gov. John Kasich's victory in Tuesday's winner-take-all Ohio primary — which keeps Kasich in a three-way nomination fight with Trump and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.
Ryan will chair the Republican convention, and would become a leading prospect if delegates decided to turn to someone outside the current field.
"I don't see that happening," he said in the interview. "I'm not thinking about it. I'm happy where I am, so no."
But at a moment of increasing urgency for the efforts by Romney and other prominent Republicans to block Trump, Ryan declined to categorically rule it out.
Paul Ryan won't categorically rule out accepting GOP nom
John Harwood | @johnjharwood
7 Hours AgoCNBC.com
In an exclusive interview with CNBC's John Harwood, House Speaker Paul Ryan declined to rule out accepting the Republican nomination if neither Trump nor any of his rivals has a majority of delegates at the GOP convention in Cleveland this summer.
House Speaker Paul Ryan decided not to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, but he declined to rule out accepting it if a deadlocked party convention turns to him this summer.
"You know, I haven't given any thought to this stuff,
" Ryan said Tuesday night in an exclusive interview at the Capitol. "People say, 'What about the contested convention?' I say, well, there are a lot of people running for president. We'll see. Who knows."
U.S. Speaker of the House Rep. Paul Ryan
Ryan, who ran in 2012 as Mitt Romney's vice presidential nominee, has taken no public actions to encourage the idea that he could become a candidate. To the contrary, a political committee set up to draft him into the 2016 race recently shut down at the urging of the speaker's aides.
"I actually think you should run for president if you're going to be president, if you want to be president," Ryan said in the interview. "I'm not running for president. I made that decision, consciously, not to."
Yet Donald Trump, even as he has established himself as the clear front-runner in the Republican race, still faces a challenge in rounding up the 1,237 delegates he needs to be nominated on the first ballot at the Republican convention in Cleveland. Trump's challenge was steepened by Gov. John Kasich's victory in Tuesday's winner-take-all Ohio primary — which keeps Kasich in a three-way nomination fight with Trump and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.
Ryan will chair the Republican convention, and would become a leading prospect if delegates decided to turn to someone outside the current field.
"I don't see that happening," he said in the interview. "I'm not thinking about it. I'm happy where I am, so no."
But at a moment of increasing urgency for the efforts by Romney and other prominent Republicans to block Trump, Ryan declined to categorically rule it out.
DUFUS Ben Carson coming clean on WHY he had to endorse the Donnie,and by doing so opening himself up to
LEGAL problems!!!.
hno:
Funny how these Republikunts always try to rewrite history,and have NO FUCKING SHAME in doing so.
Everybody who has been following the news know that it was an old WHITE FART Donnie supporter who sucker punched the BLACK protester,
and the Donnie offered to pay the old WHITE FART'S legal bills.
It has NOT even been a week yet,and suddenly now according to this Republikunt broadcaster it is a BLACK man who sucker punched the BLACK protester.
WTF???. These A-Holes have NO FUCKING SHAME !!!hno:
<font size="2">
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QaSWntQ7qg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WBHXjuSfco
GO TRUMP GO -GO TRUMP GO -GO TRUMP GO.
popcorn-eatinggifdbanana0-9
popcorn-eatinggif
LEGAL problems!!!.
hno:Funny how these Republikunts always try to rewrite history,and have NO FUCKING SHAME in doing so.
Everybody who has been following the news know that it was an old WHITE FART Donnie supporter who sucker punched the BLACK protester,
and the Donnie offered to pay the old WHITE FART'S legal bills.
It has NOT even been a week yet,and suddenly now according to this Republikunt broadcaster it is a BLACK man who sucker punched the BLACK protester.
WTF???. These A-Holes have NO FUCKING SHAME !!!
hno:<font size="2">
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QaSWntQ7qg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WBHXjuSfco
GO TRUMP GO -GO TRUMP GO -GO TRUMP GO.
popcorn-eatinggifdbanana0-9
popcorn-eatinggif
Photo Illustration by Emil Lendof/The Daily Beast
written by
Olivia Nuzzi
Jackie Kucinich
Still winning
03.16.16 12:50 AM ET
Trump Wins Again, But a Contested Convention Looms
In Palm Beach, the sockless loafer set comes out for their hometown hero.
PALM BEACH, Florida — “This is a really interesting process,” Donald Trump said, earnestly.
“I’m having a very nice time,” he added, “but you know what? I’m working very hard and there is great anger, believe me... I’m just very proud to be a part of this.”
He was onstage at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida on Tuesday night, having just won at least three of the five winner-take-all contests—including 45 percent of the vote in the primary here. He forced Marco Rubio, the state’s own Senator, to bow out of the race, leaving just three remaining candidates, down from the original 17.
But while Trump winnowed the field and grew his delegate lead closer to the 1,237 threshold needed to secure the Republican nomination, he didn’t do well enough to put an end to the race altogether. John Kasich, the governor of Ohio, won his home state by a decisive 10-point margin. To win now, Trump will need to claim 57 percent of the remaining delegates, and the odds of a contested convention, once considered highly improbable, are greater than ever.
By the early afternoon, while voting was still underway, there were so many news trucks surrounding Mar-a-Lago that it looked like the scene outside the Neverland Ranch after Michael Jackson died. Traffic was backed up to the ocean.
A short drive away, at the firehouse across from the Palm Beach town hall, voters came dressed in linen and pastels, with big sunglasses over their eyes and and Gucci loafers on their sockless feet.
Ira Schneider stood at the booth, in blue seersucker pants and a white polo shirt, holding Cupid, his seven-year-old Maltese, in one hand while voting for Trump with the other.
Schneider stuck an “I Made Freedom Count I Voted Did You?” sticker between two blue bows on Cupid’s head.
“I think Donald Trump’s going to win,” he said. He described himself as a Republican (Cupid’s political affiliation was not disclosed) but more importantly, he said, he’s sure that Trump is a “gentleman” because “we happen to know him… personally, somewhat.”
This was not uncommon to hear on Tuesday in Palm Beach, where, since 1985, Trump has owned Mar-a-Lago—a 118-room private club built in the 1920s by heiress and socialite Marjorie Merriweather Post. It’s a town of less than nine thousand, 29 of whom are his fellow billionaires, like Bill Gates and David and Bill Koch, one where private clubs like Trump’s, and The Everglades Club, which predates Mar-a-Lago by some 80 years (Mar-a-Lago was originally a residence), act as power centers for the sun-spotted elites.
Schneider, a New York transplant who’s lived in Palm Beach for eight years, said he was in his 70s and “semi-retired” from the “manufacturing” business. “I think he’ll be good for business, good for the country, and I don’t like a lot of the positions that a lot of the Democrats are taking and I think he’ll be a very strong candidate,” he said.
Specifically, he thinks Trump could improve “the trouble in the Middle East, Europe, the economy, and the general attitude with the public that is going on right now.”
He drove off in a white Mercedes, with Cupid sitting on his lap, but not before rolling down the window to reiterate the fact that he strongly agrees with Trump about the Middle East.
Trump has given so many victory speeches at this point that he seems bored of them. He begins by thanking the crowd, then he pivots to reminding them that nine months ago, nobody believed he could do this, then he goes about his usual stump speech and sometimes he tries to sell a raw steak.
For Kasich, however, giving victory speeches as a presidential candidate is new, and he seemed to hardly believe what was happening at his rally in Berea, Ohio—20 minutes outside of Cleveland.
Before he addressed his supporters, he walked around the stage and clapped along with them, as if watching the event happen to someone else.
“To have people believe in you and to believe that you can bring people together and strengthen our country—I have to thank the people of the great state of Ohio,” he said, “I love you.”
Bernie Zahn, a retiree who traveled to Ohio from New York to volunteer for the Kasich campaign, sported a tie with baseballs on it.
“You know this tie?” he said. “It stands for a whole new ballgame.”
But the ballgame is largely the same.
Despite his homestate win, Kasich’s support remains only marginal, and his path to the nomination nonexistent. And despite violence breaking out at his rallies and his own campaign manager having allegedly assaulted a member of the press, Trump remains on top.
He’s on top despite multi-million dollar ad campaigns by several anti-Trump super PACs that would have withered normal candidates. The ads used his own statements, made in public, against him, but they appeared to have no effect on his support in several key states.
Faced with this golden cockroach of a frontrunner, the most Kasich can hope for now is to aid Ted Cruz, who remained locked in a virtual tie with Trump in Missouri as of press time, in forcing a contested convention.
Gene Reed, an “automobile dealer and investor,” was the last man to vote in Palm Beach. He wore a pink, blue and red silk shirt and red crocodile loafers. He wouldn’t disclose who he voted for, only that he was a Republican and a personal acquaintance of the entire Trump family.
“I know Donald Trump and each of his sons and his daughter and his wife,” he said. “As a person, I think he’s a nice guy—of course, he’s been very successful—and I think he’s different than he is when he’s up there talking.”
—with additional reporting by Betsy Woodruff and Gideon Resnick
[h=1]Why a Contested GOP Convention Just Got More Likely[/h]
12:20 AM ET Updated: 1:15 AM ET
Christopher Morris—VII for TIME The Republican National Convention on Aug. 30, 2012 in Tampa, Fla. Republican voters handed down a split decision Tuesday that suggests the race for the party’s nomination will go all the way to Cleveland, raising the prospect of a contested convention that could tear the GOP in two.
Donald Trump padded his delegate lead by grabbing the night’s biggest prize, a blowout victory in Florida that knocked Senator Marco Rubio out of the race. Trump also snagged victories in Illinois and North Carolina and appeared set to eke out a fourth win in Missouri as the final returns trickled in late Tuesday. But his failure to deliver a knockout blow in Ohio gives him an uphill fight to secure the 1,237 delegates required to win the GOP nomination outright.
Ohio Governor John Kasich’s victory in the Buckeye State and Texas Senator Ted Cruz’s string of second-place finishes all but guarantee that both will stay in the race for the foreseeable future, racking up delegates at Trump’s expense. “We are going to go all the way to Cleveland and secure the Republican nomination,” Kasich told his crowd as he logged his presidential campaign’s first statewide win.
The prospect of a contested floor fight in July would be remarkable in modern electoral history: not since 1952 has a party arrived at a nominating convention without a presumptive winner. Party insiders’ determination to stop Trump could spur them to wrest away the crown, and the spectacle would create chaos for the GOP. Any move to block Trump’s coronation would be met with open revolt by the candidate’s fervent supporters.
“There will be such fury. There will be riots in the streets. It will be like France in the 1700s,” said Lison Drummond, a 74-year-old retiree from Grosse Pointe, Mich. “There’s no way they can take it away from him. The people will not stand for it.” It’s a threat the party can’t take lightly given the pattern of violence emerging at Trump’s campaign events. Security is always tight at conventions. They might need it in Cleveland.
Still, if Trump fails to notch a majority of bound delegates, the swath of the party that seems desperate to stop him will have the power to do it — so long as they’re willing to risk the party rupturing in the process. And the math and the map now suggest that Trump’s foes may get that chance.
Despite his comfortable lead, Trump remains a weak front runner, lagging both John McCain and Mitt Romney’s pace at a similar point in the 2008 and 2012 cycles. In order to sew up the nomination before Cleveland, Trump has to win roughly 55% of remaining delegates. The majority of the remaining 21 contests award delegates proportionally or by congressional district, with only six winner-take-all contests left. Some of those states are favorable to Trump, including Arizona on May 22 and New Jersey on June 7, the last day of primary voting. Kasich has indicated he’s also looking to put New Jersey into play, and his advisers are studying Trump’s record at his Atlantic City casinos.
Trump’s strength has so far been in open primaries and Southern states. But the complexion of the remaining contests isn’t quite so favorable. The South is done voting, and 14 of the remaining 22 contests are closed primaries — a format where Cruz has performed better. Trump has been beatable in the Midwest and Rocky Mountain states, where Cruz and Kasich should combine to peel away big chunks of delegates.
Kasich has added a new line to his standard campaign fare, promising to head West: “We’re going to rent a covered wagon,” he said Tuesday, presumably as a joke. His victory in Ohio, coupled with Rubio’s exit, could infuse Kasich’s sleepy campaign with momentum and money, making him a player in upcoming states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Indiana and West Virginia, as well as the more moderate Northeast.
The contest now turns to Utah and Arizona, which vote on March 22. Trump is favored in the winner-take-all Arizona contest but is an underdog in Utah. After that, the race enters a “spring break” hiatus, with only about 100 delegates being awarded over the course of a month. That puts pressure on the remaining campaigns’ organization and pocketbooks to stay alive as momentum fades.
GAME OUT THE NOMINATION
STEP 1. Adjust the sliders to estimate the percentage of voters each candidate will receive in the remaining primaries. As you do so, you'll see the delegate count update according to the allocation rules for each state. You'll be able to tweak the results for individual states in the next step.
Trump
0%
568
Cruz
0%
370
Rubio
0%
163
Kasich
0%
129
NO CANDIDATE HAS THE 1,237 DELEGATES NEEDED TO CLINCH THE NOMINATION. FLOOR FIGHT!
STEP 2. Click individual states to modify the results. These changes will not be overwritten by changes to the above sliders unless you hit 'reset.'
Mar 15
IL
69
Mar 15
MO
52
Mar 15
NC
72
Mar 22
AZ
58
Mar 22
AS
9
Mar 22
UT
40
Apr 1
ND
28
Apr 5
WI
42
Apr 8
CO
37
Apr 19
NY
95
Apr 26
CT
28
Apr 26
DE
16
Apr 26
MD
38
Apr 26
PA
71
Apr 26
RI
19
May 3
IN
57
May 10
NE
36
May 10
WV
34
May 17
OR
28
May 24
WA
44
Jun 7
CA
172
Jun 7
MT
27
Jun 7
NJ
51
Jun 7
NM
24
Jun 7
SD
29
“No candidate will win 1,237 delegates,” John Weaver, Kasich’s chief strategist, wrote in a memo Tuesday night. The assertion was aimed at Trump, who is almost certain to roll into Cleveland with a plurality. But Kasich has no feasible route to that magic number. Cruz, who needs more than 70% of remaining delegates, has an only slightly more plausible path. His campaign spent much of Tuesday evening encouraging Kasich to follow Rubio’s lead and quit the race in hopes of setting up a one-on-one showdown with the businessman. Still, some Republican strategists see the three-man race as beneficial to the aim of stopping Trump, with Kasich and Cruz triangulating the front runner by catering to opposite sides of the party’s ideological spectrum.
The Kasich campaign at this point is ignoring the delegates. “This has happened eight times since the 1800s, in both parties. Six of the eight times, the guy coming in with the most delegates did not win the nomination. I’ve learned a lot recently,” Weaver said. Instead, Weaver plans to whip delegates on a simple argument: “Donald Trump will get his ass kicked by Hillary Clinton.”
“We’re raising a ton of money. We’ve run this campaign with $7.5 million. We’re not going to have to worry about that anymore,” Weaver told TIME at Kasich headquarters, where his longtime advisers and supporters packed a college gymnasium. After Kasich declared victory, confetti rained down. After a similar effort in New Hampshire, Kasich razzed aides that their efforts were weak. “We decided we would bury him tonight,” one advance staffer said.
Trump and Cruz have stepped up their efforts to prepare for a contested convention in recent days as the prospect appeared more likely, with the campaigns focusing on trying to identify delegates who will shift their way after the first convention ballot.
And every delegate will count. Trump’s rivals are already laying the groundwork to argue that should Trump fall far short, a majority of Republicans will have voted against his candidacy. But if the front runner falls less than 100 delegates short of the majority threshold, most GOP operatives predict the anti-Trump forces will admit defeat rather than risk a floor fight that would face dubious prospects and potentially create a permanent rift in the party.
Beyond the spectacle of a floor fight, there are organizational consequences to these internal divisions. The eventual nominee typically starts setting up political operations months in advance. Without assurances that any one of them will be the nominee — and have the funding to pick up the tabs for offices, staff and technology — the eventual standard-bearer will be at a disadvantage.
Hillary Clinton already has a cruise ship’s worth of staff at her Brooklyn headquarters, and her in-state operations began last year. Defeating Clinton requires a unified Republican front, starting now.
That, maybe, might overtake the millions of votes that have been cast for Trump. If there is anything that can bring together a fractured party, it is Republicans’ disdain for Clinton.
12:20 AM ET Updated: 1:15 AM ET
Christopher Morris—VII for TIME The Republican National Convention on Aug. 30, 2012 in Tampa, Fla. Republican voters handed down a split decision Tuesday that suggests the race for the party’s nomination will go all the way to Cleveland, raising the prospect of a contested convention that could tear the GOP in two.
Donald Trump padded his delegate lead by grabbing the night’s biggest prize, a blowout victory in Florida that knocked Senator Marco Rubio out of the race. Trump also snagged victories in Illinois and North Carolina and appeared set to eke out a fourth win in Missouri as the final returns trickled in late Tuesday. But his failure to deliver a knockout blow in Ohio gives him an uphill fight to secure the 1,237 delegates required to win the GOP nomination outright.
Ohio Governor John Kasich’s victory in the Buckeye State and Texas Senator Ted Cruz’s string of second-place finishes all but guarantee that both will stay in the race for the foreseeable future, racking up delegates at Trump’s expense. “We are going to go all the way to Cleveland and secure the Republican nomination,” Kasich told his crowd as he logged his presidential campaign’s first statewide win.
The prospect of a contested floor fight in July would be remarkable in modern electoral history: not since 1952 has a party arrived at a nominating convention without a presumptive winner. Party insiders’ determination to stop Trump could spur them to wrest away the crown, and the spectacle would create chaos for the GOP. Any move to block Trump’s coronation would be met with open revolt by the candidate’s fervent supporters.
“There will be such fury. There will be riots in the streets. It will be like France in the 1700s,” said Lison Drummond, a 74-year-old retiree from Grosse Pointe, Mich. “There’s no way they can take it away from him. The people will not stand for it.” It’s a threat the party can’t take lightly given the pattern of violence emerging at Trump’s campaign events. Security is always tight at conventions. They might need it in Cleveland.
Still, if Trump fails to notch a majority of bound delegates, the swath of the party that seems desperate to stop him will have the power to do it — so long as they’re willing to risk the party rupturing in the process. And the math and the map now suggest that Trump’s foes may get that chance.
Despite his comfortable lead, Trump remains a weak front runner, lagging both John McCain and Mitt Romney’s pace at a similar point in the 2008 and 2012 cycles. In order to sew up the nomination before Cleveland, Trump has to win roughly 55% of remaining delegates. The majority of the remaining 21 contests award delegates proportionally or by congressional district, with only six winner-take-all contests left. Some of those states are favorable to Trump, including Arizona on May 22 and New Jersey on June 7, the last day of primary voting. Kasich has indicated he’s also looking to put New Jersey into play, and his advisers are studying Trump’s record at his Atlantic City casinos.
Trump’s strength has so far been in open primaries and Southern states. But the complexion of the remaining contests isn’t quite so favorable. The South is done voting, and 14 of the remaining 22 contests are closed primaries — a format where Cruz has performed better. Trump has been beatable in the Midwest and Rocky Mountain states, where Cruz and Kasich should combine to peel away big chunks of delegates.
Kasich has added a new line to his standard campaign fare, promising to head West: “We’re going to rent a covered wagon,” he said Tuesday, presumably as a joke. His victory in Ohio, coupled with Rubio’s exit, could infuse Kasich’s sleepy campaign with momentum and money, making him a player in upcoming states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Indiana and West Virginia, as well as the more moderate Northeast.
The contest now turns to Utah and Arizona, which vote on March 22. Trump is favored in the winner-take-all Arizona contest but is an underdog in Utah. After that, the race enters a “spring break” hiatus, with only about 100 delegates being awarded over the course of a month. That puts pressure on the remaining campaigns’ organization and pocketbooks to stay alive as momentum fades.
GAME OUT THE NOMINATION
STEP 1. Adjust the sliders to estimate the percentage of voters each candidate will receive in the remaining primaries. As you do so, you'll see the delegate count update according to the allocation rules for each state. You'll be able to tweak the results for individual states in the next step.
Trump
0%
568
Cruz
0%
370
Rubio
0%
163
Kasich
0%
129
NO CANDIDATE HAS THE 1,237 DELEGATES NEEDED TO CLINCH THE NOMINATION. FLOOR FIGHT!
STEP 2. Click individual states to modify the results. These changes will not be overwritten by changes to the above sliders unless you hit 'reset.'
Mar 15
IL
69
Mar 15
MO
52
Mar 15
NC
72
Mar 22
AZ
58
Mar 22
AS
9
Mar 22
UT
40
Apr 1
ND
28
Apr 5
WI
42
Apr 8
CO
37
Apr 19
NY
95
Apr 26
CT
28
Apr 26
DE
16
Apr 26
MD
38
Apr 26
PA
71
Apr 26
RI
19
May 3
IN
57
May 10
NE
36
May 10
WV
34
May 17
OR
28
May 24
WA
44
Jun 7
CA
172
Jun 7
MT
27
Jun 7
NJ
51
Jun 7
NM
24
Jun 7
SD
29
“No candidate will win 1,237 delegates,” John Weaver, Kasich’s chief strategist, wrote in a memo Tuesday night. The assertion was aimed at Trump, who is almost certain to roll into Cleveland with a plurality. But Kasich has no feasible route to that magic number. Cruz, who needs more than 70% of remaining delegates, has an only slightly more plausible path. His campaign spent much of Tuesday evening encouraging Kasich to follow Rubio’s lead and quit the race in hopes of setting up a one-on-one showdown with the businessman. Still, some Republican strategists see the three-man race as beneficial to the aim of stopping Trump, with Kasich and Cruz triangulating the front runner by catering to opposite sides of the party’s ideological spectrum.
The Kasich campaign at this point is ignoring the delegates. “This has happened eight times since the 1800s, in both parties. Six of the eight times, the guy coming in with the most delegates did not win the nomination. I’ve learned a lot recently,” Weaver said. Instead, Weaver plans to whip delegates on a simple argument: “Donald Trump will get his ass kicked by Hillary Clinton.”
“We’re raising a ton of money. We’ve run this campaign with $7.5 million. We’re not going to have to worry about that anymore,” Weaver told TIME at Kasich headquarters, where his longtime advisers and supporters packed a college gymnasium. After Kasich declared victory, confetti rained down. After a similar effort in New Hampshire, Kasich razzed aides that their efforts were weak. “We decided we would bury him tonight,” one advance staffer said.
Trump and Cruz have stepped up their efforts to prepare for a contested convention in recent days as the prospect appeared more likely, with the campaigns focusing on trying to identify delegates who will shift their way after the first convention ballot.
And every delegate will count. Trump’s rivals are already laying the groundwork to argue that should Trump fall far short, a majority of Republicans will have voted against his candidacy. But if the front runner falls less than 100 delegates short of the majority threshold, most GOP operatives predict the anti-Trump forces will admit defeat rather than risk a floor fight that would face dubious prospects and potentially create a permanent rift in the party.
Beyond the spectacle of a floor fight, there are organizational consequences to these internal divisions. The eventual nominee typically starts setting up political operations months in advance. Without assurances that any one of them will be the nominee — and have the funding to pick up the tabs for offices, staff and technology — the eventual standard-bearer will be at a disadvantage.
Hillary Clinton already has a cruise ship’s worth of staff at her Brooklyn headquarters, and her in-state operations began last year. Defeating Clinton requires a unified Republican front, starting now.
That, maybe, might overtake the millions of votes that have been cast for Trump. If there is anything that can bring together a fractured party, it is Republicans’ disdain for Clinton.
7 things you need to know about a contested convention
By Gregory Krieg, CNN
Updated 6:12 AM ET, Wed March 16, 2016
What is a brokered convention? 01:29
Story highlights
(CNN)Ohio Gov. John Kasich delivered a promised a victory in Ohio on Tuesday, edging out Donald Trump and sending the Republican Party further down the path to a contested convention this summer.
Despite winning Florida, the biggest prize of the night, Trump would not at his current, front-running rate, win the 1,237 delegates required to lock up the GOP bid by the end of the primary calendar in June. That means the party would arrive for its July convention without a presumptive nominee for the first time since Ronald Reagan challenged the incumbent President Gerald Ford in 1976.
President Gerald Ford listens as Ronald Reagan delivers a speech during the closing session of the Republican National Convention on August 19, 1976 in Kansas City, Missouri.
The prospect of a contested convention creates the potential for all kinds of intrigue, but it is also presents more mundane challenges.
For the candidates, delegates and party foot soldiers now faced with a political and parliamentary labyrinth generations in the making, there is no roadmap -- only riddles and questions.
Here are seven we can answer right now.
1) How does a contested convention become a brokered convention?
Simple: If no candidate arrives in Cleveland with a majority, then the convention is considered "contested." If, for example, Trump is within 100 votes of 1,237, then there is a possibility he convinces enough uncommitted delegates to lock up the nomination on the first ballot. Ford defeated Reagan in 1976 by similar means.
But if no one emerges with the magic number after that first ballot, the real action begins.
The states and territories are governed by slightly differing rules, but most require their bound delegates -- the ones awarded during the primaries and caucuses -- to vote according to those results for only one round.
If there's no winner, more than half of the delegates immediately become free agents. This is when the convention moves into its "brokered" phase and the campaigns begin to vigorously compete for their support on a second ballot. Some states require their delegates to remain pledged through multiple rounds. California, for instance, only releases its bounty of 172 delegates before the third vote.
2) Is there anyway of knowing how the delegates will vote after they are unbound
Not really.
In Arkansas, for instance, we know that Donald Trump won 16 pledged delegates to Ted Cruz's 15 and Marco Rubio's 9. But there will be another vote, at a statewide gathering late April, to decide who will be the individuals charged with delivering those votes at the national convention.
Tom Lundstrum is one of the hopefuls. A former state GOP rules chairman, he is running to be one of Cruz's delegates in Cleveland.
But what would Lundstrum do in the event Kasich and Trump were the only two viable candidates, and Cruz was out of the game?
"If I'm elected to go to the convention, I will represent Ted Cruz on behalf of the people of Arkansas who voted for him. And if I am a Cruz delegate, I will not change my ballot until I'm told by Ted Cruz that he's releasing his delegates, if it comes to that," he told CNN on Tuesday.
"I don't know at this point what would induce me to vote for (Trump) or (Kasich) -- if that's who it comes down to, I would have to give some serious consideration to the fact that Donald Trump won the plurality of Arkansas delegates," he continued. "And so I'm thinking on the behalf of my state -- I'm there to represent them, not myself -- I think I'd be inclined to always... If I'm going to make an error it's going to be on the side of the voters of Arkansas."
Now imagine a couple hundred people with similarly conflicted feelings and loyalties.
3) What is the "Rules Committee" and what kind of power do they have?
The party's "Rules Committee" is as powerful as it is difficult to handicap. In the end, it will comprise 112 members, with two representatives -- one man, one woman -- from each of the 56 states and territories sending delegates to the convention.
Further complicating matters, many of the states, even those that have already allotted delegates mathematically, have not yet elected the individuals who will make up the numbers.
"Part of the confusion is that we don't even know yet who most of these people are going to be," said Richard E. Berg-Andersson, researcher and historian for The Green Papers blog, a long-running authority on the nominating process. "Most of the states haven't held the district or state conventions that will actually name the warm bodies sitting in the seats. They don't even know who from Iowa will be eligible from Iowa to be on the rules committee."
4) What is "Rule 40" and does it apply in 2016?
In past years, the process had mostly been an afterthought. But the pre-convention meeting in 2012 was more contentious than usual, as loyalists to Mitt Romney led a successful push to change a number of rules. Among them: a requirement that candidates win a majority of the delegates in at least eight states in order to be considered viable at the convention.
Right now, only Donald Trump meets that standard.
But -- as Republicans versed in the rules will tell you, the eight-state requirement in Rule 40 is technically temporary. The RNC could vote on a new rule at the convention in 2016 and might again change the number of states at that time.
It would have to be changed if party grandees wanted to make way for a late-entering longshot challenger -- like, say, Mitt Romney.
5) Which states will have the most power going into a contested convention?
Influence at a contested convention has less to do with delegate count or size than by-laws and procedure. For that reason, keep an eye on Pennsylvania.
In a state with 71 total delegates, only 17 will enter the convention pledged to a candidate. The other 54 will effectively be up for grabs, regardless of the outcome of the state's April 26 primary. North Dakota and the some of the territories have similar systems.
Colorado and Wyoming are two more states likely to get some attention. Though Ted Cruz won 9 of the 12 delegates on offer at Wyoming's county convention, there will be another 14 available during a state convention on April 16. Colorado will directly elect 34 delegates a week earlier. These typically quiet competitions, with a small number of voters to convince, will take on added importance if the race stays tight.
6) What happens to delegates assigned to candidates who drop out of the race — do they become free agents right away?
This question is decided on a state-by-state basis.
"There are three basic flavors to the release process," explains Josh Putnam, a political scientist and founder of Frontloading HQ. "On one end of the spectrum you've got delegates who are locked in regardless of how many ballots it goes, states like Iowa. On the other end of spectrum you've got states like New Hampshire and Michigan that, once a candidate's out, their delegates are automatically released and unbound."
The third category is the most intriguing.
In a number of states, delegates are reallocated automatically based in part on the results of the original primary or caucus vote. Kentucky, Putnam notes, is a good example. The state voted on March 5, with Marco Rubio winning 7 delegates. With the Florida senator now leaving the race, his 7 delegates are likely to become uncommitted, then bound again by the Kentucky delegation.
7) Trump has said he should be the nominee if he has a plurality of the vote — could that be enough?
The requirement that a candidate win the 1,237 nominating majority, the bedrock rule of the primary process, is almost certainly off the table.
"It's a marathon, and if you run a marathon, even if all the other runners collapse before the 25-mile mark, if you collapse at the 26-mile-mark, you haven't crossed the finish line," is how Berg-Andersson explained the GOP's thinking. "So the finish line here is 1,237 delegates. Sorry, that's the rule."
Putnam agreed -- a plurality simply won't do it.
"I doubt any change is in the offing," he said. "I don't think they would either lower that or raise it in an effort to prevent Trump. That sort of proposal has never really come up."
By Gregory Krieg, CNN
Updated 6:12 AM ET, Wed March 16, 2016
What is a brokered convention? 01:29
Story highlights
- John Kasich's Ohio victory increases the probability of a GOP deadlock
- There hasn't been a 'brokered' Republican convention since 1948
(CNN)Ohio Gov. John Kasich delivered a promised a victory in Ohio on Tuesday, edging out Donald Trump and sending the Republican Party further down the path to a contested convention this summer.
Despite winning Florida, the biggest prize of the night, Trump would not at his current, front-running rate, win the 1,237 delegates required to lock up the GOP bid by the end of the primary calendar in June. That means the party would arrive for its July convention without a presumptive nominee for the first time since Ronald Reagan challenged the incumbent President Gerald Ford in 1976.
The prospect of a contested convention creates the potential for all kinds of intrigue, but it is also presents more mundane challenges.
For the candidates, delegates and party foot soldiers now faced with a political and parliamentary labyrinth generations in the making, there is no roadmap -- only riddles and questions.
Here are seven we can answer right now.
1) How does a contested convention become a brokered convention?
Simple: If no candidate arrives in Cleveland with a majority, then the convention is considered "contested." If, for example, Trump is within 100 votes of 1,237, then there is a possibility he convinces enough uncommitted delegates to lock up the nomination on the first ballot. Ford defeated Reagan in 1976 by similar means.
But if no one emerges with the magic number after that first ballot, the real action begins.
The states and territories are governed by slightly differing rules, but most require their bound delegates -- the ones awarded during the primaries and caucuses -- to vote according to those results for only one round.
If there's no winner, more than half of the delegates immediately become free agents. This is when the convention moves into its "brokered" phase and the campaigns begin to vigorously compete for their support on a second ballot. Some states require their delegates to remain pledged through multiple rounds. California, for instance, only releases its bounty of 172 delegates before the third vote.
2) Is there anyway of knowing how the delegates will vote after they are unbound
Not really.
In Arkansas, for instance, we know that Donald Trump won 16 pledged delegates to Ted Cruz's 15 and Marco Rubio's 9. But there will be another vote, at a statewide gathering late April, to decide who will be the individuals charged with delivering those votes at the national convention.
Tom Lundstrum is one of the hopefuls. A former state GOP rules chairman, he is running to be one of Cruz's delegates in Cleveland.
But what would Lundstrum do in the event Kasich and Trump were the only two viable candidates, and Cruz was out of the game?
"If I'm elected to go to the convention, I will represent Ted Cruz on behalf of the people of Arkansas who voted for him. And if I am a Cruz delegate, I will not change my ballot until I'm told by Ted Cruz that he's releasing his delegates, if it comes to that," he told CNN on Tuesday.
"I don't know at this point what would induce me to vote for (Trump) or (Kasich) -- if that's who it comes down to, I would have to give some serious consideration to the fact that Donald Trump won the plurality of Arkansas delegates," he continued. "And so I'm thinking on the behalf of my state -- I'm there to represent them, not myself -- I think I'd be inclined to always... If I'm going to make an error it's going to be on the side of the voters of Arkansas."
Now imagine a couple hundred people with similarly conflicted feelings and loyalties.
3) What is the "Rules Committee" and what kind of power do they have?
The party's "Rules Committee" is as powerful as it is difficult to handicap. In the end, it will comprise 112 members, with two representatives -- one man, one woman -- from each of the 56 states and territories sending delegates to the convention.
Further complicating matters, many of the states, even those that have already allotted delegates mathematically, have not yet elected the individuals who will make up the numbers.
"Part of the confusion is that we don't even know yet who most of these people are going to be," said Richard E. Berg-Andersson, researcher and historian for The Green Papers blog, a long-running authority on the nominating process. "Most of the states haven't held the district or state conventions that will actually name the warm bodies sitting in the seats. They don't even know who from Iowa will be eligible from Iowa to be on the rules committee."
4) What is "Rule 40" and does it apply in 2016?
In past years, the process had mostly been an afterthought. But the pre-convention meeting in 2012 was more contentious than usual, as loyalists to Mitt Romney led a successful push to change a number of rules. Among them: a requirement that candidates win a majority of the delegates in at least eight states in order to be considered viable at the convention.
Right now, only Donald Trump meets that standard.
But -- as Republicans versed in the rules will tell you, the eight-state requirement in Rule 40 is technically temporary. The RNC could vote on a new rule at the convention in 2016 and might again change the number of states at that time.
It would have to be changed if party grandees wanted to make way for a late-entering longshot challenger -- like, say, Mitt Romney.
5) Which states will have the most power going into a contested convention?
Influence at a contested convention has less to do with delegate count or size than by-laws and procedure. For that reason, keep an eye on Pennsylvania.
In a state with 71 total delegates, only 17 will enter the convention pledged to a candidate. The other 54 will effectively be up for grabs, regardless of the outcome of the state's April 26 primary. North Dakota and the some of the territories have similar systems.
Colorado and Wyoming are two more states likely to get some attention. Though Ted Cruz won 9 of the 12 delegates on offer at Wyoming's county convention, there will be another 14 available during a state convention on April 16. Colorado will directly elect 34 delegates a week earlier. These typically quiet competitions, with a small number of voters to convince, will take on added importance if the race stays tight.
6) What happens to delegates assigned to candidates who drop out of the race — do they become free agents right away?
This question is decided on a state-by-state basis.
"There are three basic flavors to the release process," explains Josh Putnam, a political scientist and founder of Frontloading HQ. "On one end of the spectrum you've got delegates who are locked in regardless of how many ballots it goes, states like Iowa. On the other end of spectrum you've got states like New Hampshire and Michigan that, once a candidate's out, their delegates are automatically released and unbound."
The third category is the most intriguing.
In a number of states, delegates are reallocated automatically based in part on the results of the original primary or caucus vote. Kentucky, Putnam notes, is a good example. The state voted on March 5, with Marco Rubio winning 7 delegates. With the Florida senator now leaving the race, his 7 delegates are likely to become uncommitted, then bound again by the Kentucky delegation.
7) Trump has said he should be the nominee if he has a plurality of the vote — could that be enough?
The requirement that a candidate win the 1,237 nominating majority, the bedrock rule of the primary process, is almost certainly off the table.
"It's a marathon, and if you run a marathon, even if all the other runners collapse before the 25-mile mark, if you collapse at the 26-mile-mark, you haven't crossed the finish line," is how Berg-Andersson explained the GOP's thinking. "So the finish line here is 1,237 delegates. Sorry, that's the rule."
Putnam agreed -- a plurality simply won't do it.
"I doubt any change is in the offing," he said. "I don't think they would either lower that or raise it in an effort to prevent Trump. That sort of proposal has never really come up."
What a fantastic night.
Despite all the money on negative Trump ads, Trump won big.
The nights fails were, Rubio, Guesser, Kelly, Sanders and Super PAC.
More money spent on negative ads against Trump than ever in electoral history. Wasted money, could have gone to charity.
7.5 Million votes already for Trump.
Listen to this nonsense: TROUBLE AHEAD
Curly Haugland Republican convention rules member told CNBC, a day after GOP front-runner
Donald Trump rolled up more big primary victories.
"The media has created the perception that the voters choose the nomination. That's the conflict
here," Curly Haugland, an unbound GOP delegate from North Dakota, told CNBC's "Squawk Box"
on Wednesday. He even questioned why primaries and caucuses are held.
Even with Trump's huge projected delegate haul in four state primaries Tuesday, the odds are
increasing the billionaire businessman may not ultimately get the 1,237 delegates needed to
claim the GOP nomination before the convention.
Emineth, also a former chairman of the North Dakota Republican Party, told "Squawk Box" in the
same interview that he's concerned about party officials pulling "some shenanigan."
Emineth said he's worried that frustration would discourage Americans in the general
election from voting Republican.
BOCA RATON, Fla. — Former Speaker John Boehner said Paul Ryan should be the Republican
nominee for president if the party fails to choose a candidate on the first ballot.
"If we don't have a nominee who can win on the first ballot, I'm for none of the above," Boehner
said at the Futures Industry Association conference here. "They all had a chance to win. None of
them won. So I'm for none of the above. I'm for Paul Ryan to be our nominee."
Curly Haugland Republican convention rules member told CNBC, a day after GOP front-runner
Donald Trump rolled up more big primary victories.
"The media has created the perception that the voters choose the nomination. That's the conflict
here," Curly Haugland, an unbound GOP delegate from North Dakota, told CNBC's "Squawk Box"
on Wednesday. He even questioned why primaries and caucuses are held.
Even with Trump's huge projected delegate haul in four state primaries Tuesday, the odds are
increasing the billionaire businessman may not ultimately get the 1,237 delegates needed to
claim the GOP nomination before the convention.
Emineth, also a former chairman of the North Dakota Republican Party, told "Squawk Box" in the
same interview that he's concerned about party officials pulling "some shenanigan."
Emineth said he's worried that frustration would discourage Americans in the general
election from voting Republican.
BOCA RATON, Fla. — Former Speaker John Boehner said Paul Ryan should be the Republican
nominee for president if the party fails to choose a candidate on the first ballot.
"If we don't have a nominee who can win on the first ballot, I'm for none of the above," Boehner
said at the Futures Industry Association conference here. "They all had a chance to win. None of
them won. So I'm for none of the above. I'm for Paul Ryan to be our nominee."
Donald J. Trump
Trump rules!
He says fuck the debate and Kasich follows. Cruz says damn it, I wanted to debate for the 10,000th time.
Monday's Republican presidential primary debate has been canceled after GOP front-runner Donald Trump declined to participate.
"On Feb. 20, the Republican National Committee announced that a GOP presidential primary debate would be held on March 21 in Salt Lake City. They offered that debate to Fox News Channel to host, provided there were enough President Michael Clemente said in a statement.
"This morning, Donald Trump announced he would not be participating in the debate. Shortly afterward, John Kasich's campaign announced that without Trump at the debate, Kasich would not participate. Ted Cruz has expressed a willingness to debate Trump or Kasich — or both. But obviously, there needs to be more than one participant. So the Salt Lake City debate is cancelled," Clemente said.
Sorry Megyn, no orgasm for you.
He says fuck the debate and Kasich follows. Cruz says damn it, I wanted to debate for the 10,000th time.
Monday's Republican presidential primary debate has been canceled after GOP front-runner Donald Trump declined to participate.
"On Feb. 20, the Republican National Committee announced that a GOP presidential primary debate would be held on March 21 in Salt Lake City. They offered that debate to Fox News Channel to host, provided there were enough President Michael Clemente said in a statement.
"This morning, Donald Trump announced he would not be participating in the debate. Shortly afterward, John Kasich's campaign announced that without Trump at the debate, Kasich would not participate. Ted Cruz has expressed a willingness to debate Trump or Kasich — or both. But obviously, there needs to be more than one participant. So the Salt Lake City debate is cancelled," Clemente said.
Sorry Megyn, no orgasm for you.
Trump is in complete control. It's an amazing historic era. He notes that "the media are disgusting"
because the media are disgusting. FINALLY, someone who tells it like it is..
Can you imagine anyone watching a Cruz and Kasich debate? At least Trump brought
some comedy to these affairs. Senator Cruz makes you grab for the remote.
The debates were jumping the shark, enough is enough. I'm glad someone had the good
sense to say no more, no matter who it was.
because the media are disgusting. FINALLY, someone who tells it like it is..
Can you imagine anyone watching a Cruz and Kasich debate? At least Trump brought
some comedy to these affairs. Senator Cruz makes you grab for the remote.
The debates were jumping the shark, enough is enough. I'm glad someone had the good
sense to say no more, no matter who it was.
Trump said Wednesday that there will be 'riots' if the Republican Party doesn't relax its rules and declare him its nominee even if he falls short of the 1,237 convention delegates that would constitute a bare majority.
Trump said on CNN on Wednesday. “I think you’d have riots.”
“I wouldn’t lead it, but I think bad things would happen,” Trump said, adding the outcome would “disenfranchise” his supporters.
Trump said on CNN on Wednesday. “I think you’d have riots.”
“I wouldn’t lead it, but I think bad things would happen,” Trump said, adding the outcome would “disenfranchise” his supporters.
Guesser needs Audiology.
Yet another Guesser fail.
Yet another Guesser beat down.
Another Guesser fail in English Language.
Guesser you not only missed history classes but you missed English classes.
Buy a good dictionary and try and help yourself with the difference between There WILL., and I THINK.
“I wouldn’t lead it, but I think bad things would happen,” Trump said, adding the outcome would “disenfranchise” his supporters.
Guesser needs Audiology.
Yet another Guesser fail.
Yet another Guesser beat down.
Another Guesser fail in English Language.
Guesser you not only missed history classes but you missed English classes.
Buy a good dictionary and try and help yourself with the difference between There WILL., and I THINK.
