Trump’s Delegate Whine Scalia’s lesson for candidates who gripe about party nominating rules: Get over it.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-delegate-whine-1460417091
As the prospect of a contested Republican presidential convention increases, so does the brawling over delegates—and the whining from the losers. If someone decides to run for President, is it too much to ask that he or his campaign managers understand the nominating rules?
“The system is rigged, it’s crooked,” Donald Trump said Monday on Fox News, with his usual understatement, after Ted Cruz won 34 GOP delegates in Colorado while Mr. Trump was shut out. “The people out there are going crazy, in the Denver area and Colorado itself, and they’re going absolutely crazy because they weren’t given a vote. This was given by politicians. It’s a crooked deal.” The truth is that he lost due to his own campaign’s ineptitude.
The state politicians in Colorado did exactly what they are entitled to do under Republican Party rules: set up a process that allocates delegates to candidates in any way a state party sees fit. Most state parties nowadays hold primary or caucus elections, but some do so with a hybrid system that can seem convoluted but makes sense if the goal is to build a party of volunteers from the ground up.
Colorado awarded delegates through a caucus process that began with precinct meetings and moved to congressional district and state GOP conventions. The attendees at those conventions then voted to elect the delegates to the national convention, and Mr. Cruz won 30 delegates that will be pledged to him on the first ballot. Another four are free agents but say they prefer Mr. Cruz. Three others are state party leaders who are free to vote as they please.
None of this was “crooked.” Mr. Trump is claiming the process was rigged because the Colorado GOP cancelled its usual straw poll held on Super Tuesday (March 15 this year). But the state party made that decision last August because such a poll would have been binding under new national GOP rules, and the Colorado party wanted its delegates to be free to support the candidate they liked in what was then a crowded field. The decision wasn’t aimed at Mr. Trump.
Mr. Cruz cleaned up in Colorado because his campaign was paying attention to the process. Whatever one thinks of the Texan’s appeal as a candidate, his campaign is organized and focused on winning the required 1,237 delegate majority. This speaks well of his ability to lead a complex organization. CONTINUE AT SITE
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