Trump Made A Mistake By Overlooking Colorado

[CPUd]

You know that's what Cruz and the Establishment will do to Trump at the convention. They can vote a rule to unbind delegates on first ballot. They can actually do anything they want. I bet you Trump knows what happened to Ron Paul and he won't let go without a fight.

Conclusion. Those delegates rules are the root of corruption.. not even considering you can bribe delegates. Much more difficult to bribe voters in primaries. Same thing with super delegates for democrats.

Liberty needs to do away with party control of selecting a nominee. I believe France system of 2 rounds of voting is the best. First you vote for the best. Second round you vote for lesser of 2 evils.

Since you can't find any wrongdoing over what happened this weekend without getting refuted by facts, you are now resorting to hypothetical events in the future which may or may not happen, so you can continue to justify your "fury".

 

[CPUd]

About the Molyneux video: It starts with some unfounded statements. When he starts to analyse it becomes a bit ridiculous: Colorado ofc did NOT choose to not have a preferential vote because of Trump announcing his candidacy. Back then in August 2015 he was still widely regarded as a joke candidate and the establishment wasn't worried about him at all. Anyways, the simple reason CO (like WY and ND) did prefer to not have a preferential vote was the change of rules the national GOP made to the process. Unlike in all races before, the national GOP changed the rules regarding delegate binding! And that was a reaction to Ron Paul's strategy. The new rule: All state GOPs have to bind delegates according to the respective preferential vote. Before March 15th that has to be done in a proportional manner, after it is allowed to be winner-take-all.

This new rule was clearly because of Ron Paul. Remember Lousiana and other states which held a preferential vote in 2012 and Ron got under 10% of the vote while later on he won majorities of the delegations! So there never was any national GOP rule that you cannot hold a beauty contest (regarding the preferential vote) like some states always did, in all the years. New national rule was clear: Delegates have to bound according to the preferential vote. Mandatory.

So what did some State GOPs with a tradition of beauty contests do? CO, WY and ND chose to not hold a vote at all. A move unexpected by the national GOP btw. So ofc they could not bind any delegates to a non-existing preferential vote and the process in the 3 states is simply caucus / convention, get your delegates from the countries or districts to the state convention and vote on delegates there.

Trump's Campaign thought they could skip that. CO, ND, WY. The next weeks will tell us how much of a blunder that has been. Maybe Trump will win big in NY + New England States + CA and he doesnt need them at all - and maybe he will only come short of a few delegates on the 1st ballot and he will lose because his campaign had no ground game at all in these 3 states. 94 delegates were at stake in the 3 states, as of now it seems Trump won only 1.

QFT. And yes, it will happen again this weekend in WY, Trump will get few or no delegates.

 

[Bryan]

Keep it civil and on-topic; there is importance to these events.

Thanks.

 

[Bryan]

You know that's what Cruz and the Establishment will do to Trump at the convention. They can vote a rule to unbind delegates on first ballot. They can actually do anything they want. I bet you Trump knows what happened to Ron Paul and he won't let go without a fight.

Conclusion. Those delegates rules are the root of corruption.. not even considering you can bribe delegates. Much more difficult to bribe voters in primaries. Same thing with super delegates for democrats.

Liberty needs to do away with party control of selecting a nominee. I believe France system of 2 rounds of voting is the best. First you vote for the best. Second round you vote for lesser of 2 evils.

I do not know the specifics but the GOP can't do whatever they want, they are minimally bound by some election laws, the scope of this is worthy of its own topic.

Otherwise I agree that the people are not well served with political party leaders using backhanded techniques to get their way. Exposing this is a good thing, another separate topic.

 

[jmdrake]

About the Molyneux video: It starts with some unfounded statements. When he starts to analyse it becomes a bit ridiculous: Colorado ofc did NOT choose to not have a preferential vote because of Trump announcing his candidacy. Back then in August 2015 he was still widely regarded as a joke candidate and the establishment wasn't worried about him at all. Anyways, the simple reason CO (like WY and ND) did prefer to not have a preferential vote was the change of rules the national GOP made to the process. Unlike in all races before, the national GOP changed the rules regarding delegate binding! And that was a reaction to Ron Paul's strategy. The new rule: All state GOPs have to bind delegates according to the respective preferential vote. Before March 15th that has to be done in a proportional manner, after it is allowed to be winner-take-all.

This new rule was clearly because of Ron Paul. Remember Lousiana and other states which held a preferential vote in 2012 and Ron got under 10% of the vote while later on he won majorities of the delegations! So there never was any national GOP rule that you cannot hold a beauty contest (regarding the preferential vote) like some states always did, in all the years. New national rule was clear: Delegates have to bound according to the preferential vote. Mandatory.

So what did some State GOPs with a tradition of beauty contests do? CO, WY and ND chose to not hold a vote at all. A move unexpected by the national GOP btw. So ofc they could not bind any delegates to a non-existing preferential vote and the process in the 3 states is simply caucus / convention, get your delegates from the countries or districts to the state convention and vote on delegates there.

Trump's Campaign thought they could skip that. CO, ND, WY. The next weeks will tell us how much of a blunder that has been. Maybe Trump will win big in NY + New England States + CA and he doesnt need them at all - and maybe he will only come short of a few delegates on the 1st ballot and he will lose because his campaign had no ground game at all in these 3 states. 94 delegates were at stake in the 3 states, as of now it seems Trump won only 1.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to MarcusI again.

Thank you for not only suffering through listing to S.M. but providing a good refutation. Stefan is upset because of the "horse trading" that goes on in caucuses? Ummm......hello? That's the way the Iowa caucuses have been for as far back as anyone can remember. People trading votes literally for cupcakes. I'm glad I'm apparently not the only one that remembers that the entire strategy of Ron Paul 2012 was to win delegates in caucus states regardless of what the popular vote would be. We called the popular vote a "beauty contest." We were told "Just hang around at the convention until all of the main supporters are gone and when the real business happens get to work and win delegates." And....it worked. Ron Paul won delegates in places where he lost the popular vote. So a rule was put in to block Ron Paul. Colorado circumvented the rule, and low and behold this time it works working against the new "insurgent" candidate.

 

[jmdrake]

Yep. I noticed the similarity to Ayn Rand novels too. People are against Trump for all the wrong reasons.

People are against Trump for their own reasons. I'm against Trump because I discovered he lied about being a non-interventionist. Ron Paul is against Trump because he feels Trump is an authoritarian. I get the "Support Trump because that will help the Libertarian Party" in November and while I respect that logic, it's simply not a risk I'm willing to take.

 

[Mordan]

Remember that in some states (~25% of all) delegates are chosen by the campaigns themselves and not by the state conventions. So Trump has some majorites with his own delegates for sure. If Trump and Cruz are smart, they can lock out any other candidate from getting nominated, as the two of them (probably, very likely) will have a majority in the rules committee which will come together a few days before the actual convention. Each state delegation sends two members to that one.

What if Cruz tricks with the help of the Establishment give him a majority all by himself in that committee?

 

[Bryan]

Nope he got cheated. His hard won delegates are being stripped away after victories in some states. Colorado there is a concentrated effort to shut him out.

Well I been reading that he is starting to do that in other states to Cruz.

I would be very interested to hear this, a topic for another thread. Thanks.

 

[Bryan]

Nope. Ron Paul had lights turned off on him, had meeting disbanded, had votes overturned. Not even close. Actually kinda what is happening to Trump.

From what I learned about, there were cases of both around the country. In some cases delegates got procedurally hosed, in other cases, Ron Paul supporters leveraged their strong organizational skills to move forward with their agenda / delegate slate.

What I see as a worthy effort is to clearly document all of these techniques to help drive change and to educate other liberty delegates.

 

[CPUd]

What if Cruz tricks with the help of the Establishment give him a majority all by himself in that committee?

It won't bode well for challenges launched by Trump, because the people who did get elected to those seats are currently getting death threats by low info voters who are gassed up by the likes of Roger Stone, Alex Jones and Drudge.

 

[MarcusI]

What if Cruz tricks with the help of the Establishment give him a majority all by himself in that committee?

I have to admit that is possible, I dont think that will happen though. However, assuming this will happen, I doubt Cruz would go that far to unbind all delegates for the 1st ballot, as that would cause more turmoil than needed. In case Trump doesnt have the bound majority outright on the 1st ballot, its much smarter to let him lose the 1st ballot, showing no candidate has a majority at all, and then win on the 2nd (or 3rd/4th) ballot.

If Trump has a majority of bound delegates going into the convention on the 1st ballot, he will win it, thats my prediction, a educated or maybe uneducated guess. If they would steal (and in that case "steal" would be the proper term) under these circumstances the nomination from Trump, it would cause havoc.

 

[MarcusI]

Well, thinking about it a bit more, I must say it is even likely that Trump alone wont have a majority in the rules commitee. Cruz+establishment are more likely to have that majority, given the poor delegate ground game of Trump. Still, all my other "predictions" I keep up.

 

[CPUd]

Kasich's campaign got the committee members in MI over the weekend.

 

[erowe1]

So I re listened the first part. I have not finished the video yet. So here is a part that is relevant I think. 4 to 10 min. He talks about how delegates happen to be selected. That being that you can offer them bribes in the forms of trips and etc. You do a lot of hand shaking but no real voting is taking place. Kinda like how people voted for example in Iowa. They vote first to see who has more support and then distribute the delegates evenly. Ron Paul had to fight hard after Iowa to get his delegates seated. What they did is they decided to make the state winner take all and not have a general vote. That is exactly what Stefan said in the first minute.

Then there you have it. I was right. He has no clue about what he's talking about. Most of this is false. There were precinct caucuses on March 1, where Republicans precinct by precinct elected their specific delegates to the state convention. They could have elected delegates who would go to that convention supporting Cruz, or they could have elected delegates who would go there supporting Trump, or they could have elected delegates who would go their uncommitted. Trump supporters had the opportunity to run for those delegate slots, and to vote for each other, and they simply didn't do it. The Trump campaign had the opportunity to coordinate that, and it didn't do it. It had the opportunity to woo those individual state convention delegates after they were elected at the precinct caucuses, and it didn't.

The biggest problem Trump had at that state convention had nothing to do with any of the problems you mention. It was the simple fact that his own supporters were massively outnumbered there. And that was by choice on their part and his.

 

[LibertyEagle]

It won't bode well for challenges launched by Trump, because the people who did get elected to those seats are currently getting death threats by low info voters who are gassed up by the likes of Roger Stone, Alex Jones and Drudge.

Now you are parroting the MSM. Did you do that when Ron ran?

 

[CPUd]

Now you are parroting the MSM. Did you do that when Ron ran?

I thought it was nicer than calling them Trumpanzees

 

[erowe1]

[MENTION=660]LibertyEagle[/MENTION] is on a kick today trying to say that the criticisms we have of Trump apply to Ron Paul too. (mod edit)

 

[CPUd]

Then there you have it. I was right. He has no clue about what he's talking about. Most of this is false. There were precinct caucuses on March 1, where Republicans precinct by precinct elected their specific delegates to the state convention. They could have elected delegates who would go to that convention supporting Cruz, or they could have elected delegates who would go there supporting Trump, or they could have elected delegates who would go their uncommitted. Trump supporters had the opportunity to run for those delegate slots, and to vote for each other, and they simply didn't do it. The Trump campaign had the opportunity to coordinate that, and it didn't do it. It had the opportunity to woo those individual state convention delegates after they were elected at the precinct caucuses, and it didn't.

The biggest problem Trump had at that state convention had nothing to do with any of the problems you mention. It was the simple fact that his own supporters were massively outnumbered there. And that was by choice on their part and his.

Yes, the Trump state "coordinator" told them in a conference call that they were focusing resources in NY (where he is ahead by 30 points) and couldn't help them in CO. Even the CO GOP tried to get Trump to come there and speak, he wouldn't do it. Probably after hearing there were 4 Cruz/uncommitted delegates for each 1 of his.

 

[jmdrake]

Then there you have it. I was right. He has no clue about what he's talking about. Most of this is false. There were precinct caucuses on March 1, where Republicans precinct by precinct elected their specific delegates to the state convention. They could have elected delegates who would go to that convention supporting Cruz, or they could have elected delegates who would go there supporting Trump, or they could have elected delegates who would go their uncommitted. Trump supporters had the opportunity to run for those delegate slots, and to vote for each other, and they simply didn't do it. The Trump campaign had the opportunity to coordinate that, and it didn't do it. It had the opportunity to woo those individual state convention delegates after they were elected at the precinct caucuses, and it didn't.

The biggest problem Trump had at that state convention had nothing to do with any of the problems you mention. It was the simple fact that his own supporters were massively outnumbered there. And that was by choice on their part and his.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to erowe1 again.

Exactly. These complaints from Stefan about having to "woo" delegates ring hollow when considering the fact that this has always been the process when there is a caucus. In 2012 we (Ron Paul supporters) were told to "ignore the beauty contest" and "concentrated on the conventions." Well...Colorado dumped the "beauty contest." Donald Trump ignored the conventions (Stefan admits this at least) and now Trump and his supporters are upset about the predictable results.

 

[silverhandorder]

Then there you have it. I was right. He has no clue about what he's talking about. Most of this is false. There were precinct caucuses on March 1, where Republicans precinct by precinct elected their specific delegates to the state convention. They could have elected delegates who would go to that convention supporting Cruz, or they could have elected delegates who would go there supporting Trump, or they could have elected delegates who would go their uncommitted. Trump supporters had the opportunity to run for those delegate slots, and to vote for each other, and they simply didn't do it. The Trump campaign had the opportunity to coordinate that, and it didn't do it. It had the opportunity to woo those individual state convention delegates after they were elected at the precinct caucuses, and it didn't.

The biggest problem Trump had at that state convention had nothing to do with any of the problems you mention. It was the simple fact that his own supporters were massively outnumbered there. And that was by choice on their part and his.

Actually that is it. I guess March 1st or w/e is exactly when no votes took place. He goes for 20 minutes describing how under handed the voting was.

Let's assume you are right and there was some voting by general public. It was still done badly with Cruz defending a bad system. A system where you can bribe and elect people with backroom deals. A system where most voters have no clue that it even exists. So yeah if you trying to split hairs I guess you accomplished that. With this type of vote I have to agree with Drudge 100% there was no vote by the public.