In the week before all of the delegates gathered in Cleveland for the Republican National Convention, there were backroom efforts to instill party unity by respecting the conservative grassroots.
On the Rules Committee, former Virginia Attorney General and RNC Delegate Ken Cuccinelli and Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) worked to give sway to conservatives in the 2020 primary cycle via backdoor negotiations. What seems to have ended the efforts was a call for closed primaries and a study group to examine the primary process, but not with the members hand-picked by the RNC establishment.
Talks broke down and the Rules Committee defeated the motion to affirm the long standing Republican principle of Unbinding the Delegates on the first round of balloting in Cleveland.
The only exception was in the 1976 Kansas City Convention, when President Gerald Ford barely beat out former Governor Ronald Reagan (R-CA) because of a change in rules (coincidentally also engineered by Trump convention manager Paul Manafort) to bind delegates.
Unnamed RNC officials quipped: "Pigs get fed, hogs get slaughtered". So window dressing overtures were acceptable but anything that might actually endanger the GOP Establishment is a cause to crush with a vengeance.
Even during his rambling introduction of his Vice Presidential running mate, presumptive Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump could not help but take a swing at his opposition, even at the eve of the Trump triumph, as he urged out of the other side of his mouth for party unity. It seems that the choice of Governor Mike Pence (R-IN), a traditional conservative who will not upstage the top of the ticket is supposed to suffice for the conservative grassroots.
Pence for your thoughts?
On the Rules Committee, former Virginia Attorney General and RNC Delegate Ken Cuccinelli and Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) worked to give sway to conservatives in the 2020 primary cycle via backdoor negotiations. What seems to have ended the efforts was a call for closed primaries and a study group to examine the primary process, but not with the members hand-picked by the RNC establishment.
Talks broke down and the Rules Committee defeated the motion to affirm the long standing Republican principle of Unbinding the Delegates on the first round of balloting in Cleveland.
The only exception was in the 1976 Kansas City Convention, when President Gerald Ford barely beat out former Governor Ronald Reagan (R-CA) because of a change in rules (coincidentally also engineered by Trump convention manager Paul Manafort) to bind delegates.
Unnamed RNC officials quipped: "Pigs get fed, hogs get slaughtered". So window dressing overtures were acceptable but anything that might actually endanger the GOP Establishment is a cause to crush with a vengeance.
Even during his rambling introduction of his Vice Presidential running mate, presumptive Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump could not help but take a swing at his opposition, even at the eve of the Trump triumph, as he urged out of the other side of his mouth for party unity. It seems that the choice of Governor Mike Pence (R-IN), a traditional conservative who will not upstage the top of the ticket is supposed to suffice for the conservative grassroots.
Pence for your thoughts?
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