Leading officials in the Republican National Committee reportedly met Tuesday afternoon to discuss the semantics of a contested convention, Politico reported.
More than two dozen “veteran GOP operatives” attended the meeting in Washington, where officials argued that there was time to lobby between ballots at the GOP convention, according to unnamed operatives who spoke to Politico.
The meeting came before the primary in Wisconsin where Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) was projected to win Tuesday night.
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The RNC officials aren’t the crew rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, they are the ship band playing “Nearer My God To Thee” as the ship goes down.
In fairness, the probability of a contested convention just went way up. Its pretty damn near assured right now.
Cruz can’t win the necessary delegates to win outright, but its extremely doubtful that Trump can either. He has not posted a single win anywhere with a margin over 50%, and Cruz has been racking up quite a few recently. The momentum is definitely on Cruz’s side, and has a far more organized campaign and delegate outreach program underway.
But who’s going to be the fresh-faced white knight who’s going to rush in and save the party from itself? It won’t be Perry, Ryan says he’s not interested, Mitt?
Ryan is basically humblebragging. Its the same tactic he took for the House. He publicly decries wanting the nomination, while working every angle he can behind close doors. Because, quite frankly, that’s the only way that anyone can get the nod in that sort of inplausable scenario.
Anyone saying they want the nod is immediately disqualified as being tainted by personal ambition, when the party needs someone to unite it. In many ways its precisely the same situation regarding the Speaker position.
And remember, he gave a list of demands he wanted met before he would accept that job. And every one of them was denied. Yet he still took it. That says volumes.
I don’t see that scenario as very likely however. If Trump can’t get it on the first vote, the party will start rallying around Cruz, who at the very least, has shown savvy in how to woo party people to in the actual delegate selection process. That will be enough for them to hold their noses and get behind him.
If not, and assuming the delegates remove Rule 40, which prevents anyone without 8 wins from being nominated, than I guess anything is plausible.
But no matter which scenario pans out, they are going to be facing huge defections…either crossing the line for Hillary are staying at home. What gets missed with all the focus on the school yard antics…is none of them is lifting a finger to reach out to anyone else’s voters. Trump is pissing on everyone who doesn’t support him, Cruz is attacking Trump,which only makes his supporters hate Cruz more, Kasich is starting to sound like Rodney King asking why cant we all just get along?..and that NEVER works with the GOP, and all the non candidates are figuring out how to piss off both the Trump AND Cruz camps by stealing it away from both.
Ryan’s faux “reluctant hero” cosplay isn’t going to be even close to enough to solve those rifts.
And the meltdown begins in earnest.
When will they agree to bring out the dancing bears?
They already have the clowns.