Will these whispers turn to shouts?
The word behind the word is that Paul Manafort is already earning his keep BIG TIME as he moves to deliver a stunning blow to the Cruz campaign a source describes as a potential “punch to the face” that involves the number 172.
Here is a brief summary of what will simply be called the “172 Plan” :
**Talks are ongoing and more numerous between Team Trump and a second party over the last 48-hours.
**If these talks lead to an agreement, it will be a game-changer in the 2016 Republican nomination process.
**Manafort is said to be personally leading the negotiations with Donald Trump’s full approval. In fact, it’s believed Manafort was the first to suggest this scenario last month but did so then more as an observer of the campaign. Now he is a top-ranking operative/adviser for Team Trump.
**This ongoing negotiation has sent the Cruz campaign scrambling to block further negotiation from materializing and getting a considerable assist from powerful GOP forces.
#1: Tooconservative To: A K A Stone (#0)
You'd expect Rubio would want the VP slot. Or at least SecDef.
Of course, all that would only be true if DCWhispers was not a crackpot website.
Besides, Politico's delegate tracker sez Rubio only has 171 and he hasn't gotten any new bound delegates lately.
Tooconservative posted on 2016-04-10 15:12:45 Reply Private Reply
#2: nolu chan To: TooConservative, A K A Stone (#1)
A first ballot vote. Rubio's name would not be placed in nomination. Also possible is a similar deal with Kasich.
nolu chan posted on 2016-04-11 15:05:33 Reply Private Reply
#3: Tooconservative To: nolu chan (#2)
Aren't nearly all of them bound on the first convention ballot?
The rest of the convention is unlikely to approve anything that undermine the state laws on bound delegates. For one thing, you could end up in a court fight very quickly.
We had this fight 50 years ago over bound delegates. Since then, delegates bound by their states remain bound at the convention. To the point that even if some small group of delegates (or even an entire state's delegates) tries to vote for someone they are not bound to, the convention chair still reads their votes into the record as being cast for the candidate to whom they are bound. The same goes for any delegates trying to vote for someone who is not qualified to be on the convention ballot (lacking an 8-state delegate majority or, before 2012, 5 states).
I've been waiting to hear what the also-ran delegates are supposed to do at the convention. I still think they have to wait to vote until they are unbound. Some state parties may unbind such delegates but we do know that Rubio has written letters to state parties demanding that his delegates remain bound to him. That implies there are means in the state parties, either under law or under party rules in that state, to unbind Rubio's delegates. Otherwise, he wouldn't have to write those letters.
Tooconservative posted on 2016-04-11 16:20:20 Reply Private Reply
#4: nolu chan To: TooConservative (#3)
Nobody is bound or able to vote for someone who is not placed in nomination, or is ineligible to be placed in nomination. If Rubio is not placed in nomination, his delegates become unbound. They are free agents.
nolu chan posted on 2016-04-11 20:36:21 Reply Private Reply