The Establishments war on Donald Trump
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Title: RNC chair Reince Priebus: 'Nothing bad is going to happen'
Source:
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
URL Source: http://www.jsonline.com/news/statep ... pen-b99694734z1-373626071.html
Published: Mar 27, 2016
Author: Craig Gilbert of the Journal Sentinel
Post Date: 2016-03-27 10:21:43 by cranky
Keywords: None
Views: 1531
Comments: 9
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump (left) speaks with Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, at a debate sponsored by Fox News in Detroit earlier this month. Washington— Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus says the people inside and outside his party who are forecasting an electoral disaster for Republicans will be left "scratching their heads" this fall. "What is everyone going to say when we steamroll our opponents on the other side of the aisle?" Priebus said in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in advance of his home state's presidential primary in Wisconsin on April 5. Priebus is grappling with the nastiest, most explosive GOP race for president in memory, the possibility of a contested convention this summer, and the fears of many GOP insiders that the top two Republican presidential candidates, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, would drag the party to defeat in November. In the interview, Priebus pushed back on those predictions of doom, downplayed the rancor of the race and insisted the political "fundamentals on our side are unbelievably good." Here are excerpts from the interview, which took place Wednesday, as the latest brawl between Trump and Cruz was just beginning: Q.How would you characterize the Wisconsin primary's (potential) impact on the Republican race? A: It was pivotal in 2012 and it might be pivotal again in 2016. Q.When do you think we'll know whether there is going to be a contested convention or not? A. Probably June 8, after the June 7 primaries... you might know before then, it's possible. But it's probably after June 7. Q.When you hear terms like "hostile takeover" or "hijacking the party" get thrown around in connection to (Donald) Trump, what's your reaction to that? A: It's not the case. You've looked around here. Is anyone taking over the RNC? ... You have personalities out there that are getting lot of oxygen. But in the end, no candidate can survive without the RNC. They're not capable of survival without the RNC. We just have too many people, too many resources, too much money for any person that becomes the nominee to survive without us. Now the other point is that, by its very nature, these candidates are auditioning to join us. I mean, that's what happening: one of them is going to join us in Cleveland. We're not auditioning to join a candidate. I'm not auditioning for anybody. They're working hard to be the nominee and spokesman of our party — which we control. Q.Some Republicans say they're worried about the party being transformed by Trump somehow, in a way that entirely changes what the party stands for, that turns it into a different party. A: No, we've got a platform. We've got a platform committee. I don't think any one person in three months as our nominee can alter direction of a party that's been around for 160 years. I think it's a lot of hype. Q.You've said... a candidate falling short, falling 100 votes short but having a clear lead, there's nothing that says that candidate has to get the nomination. A:You have to have the majority, so you can't be short. You have to have the majority. If you don't have the majority on first ballot, no one's going to come up to the stage and say, "Well, they're not quite a majority, but they're close enough, so we're ready to move on." That's not the way it works. You go to the second vote... When I ran for chairman of the RNC, I won on the seventh ballot. I was never behind... I needed 85 (votes). But if I got to 83 votes and for whatever reason, hit my ceiling, I wouldn't have gone back to Kenosha and said, "Oh, I got cheated." Q.The argument Donald Trump was making is you pay a big price if someone comes really close going in, and then is denied. A: Well, of course... People are fired up, we have record turnout. For the first time in a long time, we have more Republicans registered in almost every battleground state than the Democrats do. The fundamentals on our side are unbelievably good. But it doesn't change the fact that you have to have a majority ... Here's my problem: The media and all the folks out there that write and get on television... they're obsessed with the narrative of what a candidate said today or yesterday... but what they're missing is the fact we've got 5,000 people being trained... that we're hiring thousands of people across the country, that we have record turnout in every one of these states. And the Democrats are down by 30%. What is everyone going to say when we steamroll our opponents on the other side of the aisle? Everyone is going to be scratching their heads because they're expecting something bad to happen. No — nothing bad is going to happen. This is going to keep going. And... when we have one of our candidates debate Hillary Clinton, this isn't going to end. The momentum isn't suddenly going to just fall of a cliff. Q.You've got people in your own party drawing nightmare scenarios of Trump dragging the rest of the party down. A: Yeah, and how well have all these smart people done for us over the last several presidential elections? How smart are they? All these smart people running around telling everyone what's going to work and what's not going to work — I really don't know where these experts are at. Because we didn't really win in '08, we didn't win in 2012, we barely got through '04 with a popular — still at the time — incumbent president. We know what happened in 2000, '96 wasn't very fun, '92 was no better. So the last time we won with relative ease was 1988. It's not like this suddenly happened. So we have to be really good. All I'm saying is all of the armchair quarterbacking going on is done by a lot of people who haven't really delivered. So I sort of just reject it. Q.I hear from a lot of voters on the campaign trail that they're just shocked and appalled by the discourse. Is that damaging to the party, or to the political culture, whether it's what was on Twitter last night or what's been in some of the debates? A: I believe that family members should be left out of the conversation. And I do think that overall some of these things are not helpful. But I also think that while we chat about how people should behave or not behave, I think most of it's (just) chatter. 
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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 6.
#1. To: cranky (#0)
Just remember, in 2012, at the GOP convention, these party elites kicked Ron Paul out with all new central committee rules. The same will happen this year as the power elites choose their new potus puppet.
If need be they can change he rules before the convention. And I've read, Cruz has stacked the deck in the rules committee with his delegates. But despite Trump's bluster, his threats and his bravado, if he doesn't bring 1237 delegates to Cleveland in July he won't get the nomination. And there is absolutely nothing Trump can do to change that.
I just attempted to get the latest GOP delegate count for POTUS. All I can find are old numbers. What are the latest delegate counts for the GOP?
Politico's 2016 Delegate Tracker is usually current.
Proof that there is no "clear" winner. This is what makes party conventions so awesome for the delegates attending: after they sell their soul to the devil they get a free ride in some bureaucrtaic position.
#7. To: buckeroo (#6)
Not yet and with the rest of the herd ganging up on Trump, probably not likely to be. Too bad. I was really hoping Trump would have the delegates he needed and Rove/Priebus would simply just deny him the nomination. I really wanted to see that.
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#2. To: buckeroo (#1)
The same will happen this year as the power elites choose their new potus puppet.
#3. To: cranky (#2)
#5. To: buckeroo (#3)
What are the latest delegate counts for the GOP?
#6. To: cranky (#5)
Replies to Comment # 6. Proof that there is no "clear" winner.
End Trace Mode for Comment # 6.
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