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trueblue
Joined: 15 Jun 2014
Location: In between the lines
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 Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2016 8:10 pm Post subject: Things are getting interesting in Colorado... |
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http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_28700919/
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EDITOR'S NOTE: This story was first published on Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2015 at 2:06 p.m. Please see Angry Donald Trump blasts Colorado GOP results as "totally unfair," published on Sunday, April 10, 2016.
Colorado will not vote for a Republican candidate for president at its 2016 caucus after party leaders approved a little-noticed shift that may diminish the state's clout in the most open nomination contest in the modern era.
The GOP executive committee has voted to cancel the traditional presidential preference poll after the national party changed its rules to require a state's delegates to support the candidate who wins the caucus vote.
The move makes Colorado the only state so far to forfeit a role in the early nomination process, according to political experts, but other caucus states are still considering how to adapt to the new rule.
"It takes Colorado completely off the map" in the primary season, said Ryan Call, a former state GOP chairman.
Republicans still will hold precinct caucus meetings in early 2016 to begin the process of selecting delegates for the national convention — but the 37 delegates are not pledged to any specific candidate.
The Democratic Party still will hold a presidential straw poll March 1 — a Super Tuesday vote in a key swing state that is attracting attention from top-tier candidates.
For Republicans, no declared winner means the caucus will lack much of its hype. The presidential campaigns still may try to win delegate slots for their supporters, but experts say the move makes it less likely that candidates will visit Colorado to court voters.
The Colorado system often favors anti-establishment candidates who draw a dedicated following among activists — as evidenced by Rick Santorum's victory in 2012 caucus. So the party's move may hurt GOP contenders such as Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Rand Paul, who would have received a boost if they won the state.
State Republican Party Chairman Steve House said the party's 24-member executive committee made the unanimous decision Friday — six members were absent — to skip the preference poll.
The move, he said, would give Colorado delegates the freedom to support any candidate eligible at the Cleveland convention in July. Republican National Committee officials confirmed that the change complies with party rules.
"If we do a binding presidential preference poll, we would then pledge our delegates ... and the candidates we bind them to may not be in the race by the time we get to the convention," House said in an interview Tuesday.
The caucus is likely to occur in February, but party officials will meet next month to finalize the date.
In 2008 and 2012, die-hard Republican voters gathered at caucus meetings to begin the delegate-selection process of selecting delegates to the national convention and voice support for presidential candidates in a straw poll.
The votes, however, didn't require Colorado delegates to support any particular candidate at the national conventions. This allowed for delegates that supported a losing candidate to vote for the nominee and demonstrate party unity at the convention.
But the freedom also opened the door for political mischief, as Colorado saw in 2012 when Ron Paul supporters managed to win a significant portion of the delegate slots, even though Paul finished far behind other candidates in the Colorado caucuses.
The RNC tightened the rules in 2012 to eliminate nonbinding straw polls and help prevent similar stunts in the future, forcing Colorado Republicans to re-evaluate their process. An effort earlier this year to switch to a presidential primary system failed amid party infighting.
"It's an odd scenario," said Josh Putnam, a political science lecturer at the University of Georgia who runs a popular blog on the presidential nominating process. "It's not to say the campaigns won't be there. ... But you won't have a good reflection of support at the caucuses, much less Colorado Republicans as a whole."
Other caucus states are grappling with the rule change in different ways as they finalize their plans before the deadline at the end of September, Putnam said, but he is not aware of any state that has abandoned the presidential caucus vote.
With the change, the only way Colorado Republican delegates would remain relevant is the remote chance that no candidate emerges as a clear winner in the primary contest. In this case, the state's unbound delegates would receive significant attention and may hold the key to victory in a floor fight.
"If there's the potential for a brokered convention in any way, the unaffiliated delegates become extremely important," said Joy Hoffman, the Arapahoe County GOP chairwoman who attended the party meeting. "If there is someone who becomes a front-runner, ... then nobody's important. So I think the view became that if we were not bound, it's not the worse thing that could happen."
John Frank: 303-954-2409, [email protected] or twitter.com/ByJohnFrank
Colorado caucus results: Published here caucus night. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2016 11:38 pm Post subject: |
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It would be easier to have sympathy for Republicans who feel they are being cheated out of the candidate of their choice if not for the, "America is a republic, not a democracy," meme that demographic frequently invokes every time a change which they dislike occurs. Okay, so America isn't a democracy, and neither is the Republican Party, which means that "the will of the people" is less important and influential than the will of the individuals in a position to interpret and implement the rules. Should it be surprising if the same party that frets about the potential for "mob rule" ends up disenfranchising many of its own registered members, especially when presidential primaries are more about manufacturing support than anything?
Beyond that, if Mr. Trump cannot even influence the party leaders sufficiently to bring them in line behind him, how could he possibly hope to influence the governments of Mexico, China, Russia, and wherever else as he has promised to do? You can rabble rouse America's peasantry easily enough, but the same thing isn't going to work on people living in other countries. If nothing else, there's a test of real leadership ability here, and after we were lectured on how masterfully Mr. Trump manages everyone's egos and what a superb master of persuasion he is, it would be a shame for him if he were unable to bring either ability to bear in defense of his candidacy, wouldn't it? |
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Swartz
Joined: 19 Dec 2014
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| Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2016 9:42 am Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| Beyond that, if Mr. Trump cannot even influence the party leaders sufficiently to bring them in line behind him, how could he possibly hope to influence the governments of Mexico, China, Russia, and wherever else as he has promised to do? You can rabble rouse America's peasantry easily enough, but the same thing isn't going to work on people living in other countries. If nothing else, there's a test of real leadership ability here, and after we were lectured on how masterfully Mr. Trump manages everyone's egos and what a superb master of persuasion he is, it would be a shame for him if he were unable to bring either ability to bear in defense of his candidacy, wouldn't it? |
For someone who pretends to be such a deep and principled philosophical thinker, you really turn into an intellectually duplicitous, handrubbing stereotype whenever you push out an innervated dispatch related to Trumpian nationalism. It's quite telling, actually. Referring to the White working class that has been disenfranchised professionally and demographically for decades as “America's peasantry” (and in comparison to the democrat's industrious Afro-Mestizo base? Please, Shlomo…), calling the one person stepping up to speak for those people a rebel rouser, then producing more of these ratty sneers about what a shame it'll be if the people's overwhelming choice is ultimately bypassed at the end of the process. Nothing ignites terror in the nomad from the shtetl than the thought of those around him collectivizing and expressing their interests as a people. He knows it's eventually bound to turn on his own since his own do so much to undermine that collective identity. |
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trueblue
Joined: 15 Jun 2014
Location: In between the lines
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| Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2016 1:26 pm Post subject: |
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| Swartz wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
| Beyond that, if Mr. Trump cannot even influence the party leaders sufficiently to bring them in line behind him, how could he possibly hope to influence the governments of Mexico, China, Russia, and wherever else as he has promised to do? You can rabble rouse America's peasantry easily enough, but the same thing isn't going to work on people living in other countries. If nothing else, there's a test of real leadership ability here, and after we were lectured on how masterfully Mr. Trump manages everyone's egos and what a superb master of persuasion he is, it would be a shame for him if he were unable to bring either ability to bear in defense of his candidacy, wouldn't it? |
For someone who pretends to be such a deep and principled philosophical thinker, you really turn into an intellectually duplicitous, handrubbing stereotype whenever you push out an innervated dispatch related to Trumpian nationalism. It's quite telling, actually. Referring to the White working class that has been disenfranchised professionally and demographically for decades as “America's peasantry” (and in comparison to the democrat's industrious Afro-Mestizo base? Please, Shlomo…), calling the one person stepping up to speak for those people a rebel rouser, then producing more of these ratty sneers about what a shame it'll be if the people's overwhelming choice is ultimately bypassed at the end of the process. Nothing ignites terror in the nomad from the shtetl than the thought of those around him collectivizing and expressing their interests as a people. He knows it's eventually bound to turn on his own since his own do so much to undermine that collective identity. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2016 3:54 pm Post subject: |
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| Swartz wrote: |
For someone who pretends to be such a deep and principled philosophical thinker, you really turn into an intellectually duplicitous, handrubbing stereotype whenever you push out an innervated dispatch related to Trumpian nationalism. |
I don't have any idea what "Trumpian Nationalism" is, because when the man in question speaks about such subjects, he invariably changes positions again, and again, and again. That is part of my concern. Mr. Trump has been only too happy to change his positions on various issues moment-to-moment even during the primary, so why on Earth would anyone think he was some kind of principled thinker? Purely and only because they have begun to project onto and identify with him, of course. What is the primary characteristic of a peasant? His relationship with and comportment towards his noble lord, of course. And now, surely, you realize why I made the joke I did.
Contrary to your implication, I have a reasonable concern, and even esteem, for America's working classes, who engage in honorable labor for their living and really are the foundation of the country. I understand their frustrations with issues like immigration, free trade, and the like, and yes, they have been disenfranchised in a meaningful sense. Unfortunately -- and this is what is vexing about the matter -- they have been and continue to be complicit in their own disenfranchisment. Just as with the "Tea Party," they're responding to dysfunction with dysfunction; embracing the snake oil salesman and setting themselves up for another round of the pain. Mr. Trump's already given enough hints that immigration (skilled and unskilled, legal and illegal) would continue under him; that military adventurism and strong support for Israel would continue under him; that the tax and labor policies of America would shift even more in favor of the wealthy at the expense of the lower classes under him (though not as severely as they would under a hypothetical President Cruz), and so forth. "I'm changing it," was a very well-chosen phrase, even if it was well chosen by accident.
| Swartz wrote: |
| ... what a shame it'll be if the people's overwhelming choice is ultimately bypassed at the end of the process. |
You seem to have missed the point in that statement, which was that the same parties lamenting the potential for a non-democratic Republican Primary themselves lean on memes like this, or this, or this, or so forth whenever faced with the potential of a societal change they personally dislike. Yes, I see the irony, and even the humor, in such people suddenly becoming ardent proponents of decision-by-vote, even to the point where they insist a candidate who failed to get an outright of the majority of the vote ought to win by default. Why shouldn't I joke around a bit by such people? And if someone is offended or irritated by those jokes, well, perhaps they ought to reflect on the true function of comedy and consider carefully exactly why they felt such a thing in response to the lightest of teasings. Why is it I can bear you directly insulting me, but you cannot seem to bear me even making a small joke suggesting that the crowd -- a crowd which is not even the majority of the Republican party, mind you, so I've no idea whence comes this talk of "overwhelming choice" -- lined up behind Mr. Trump might be thinking in error?
Last edited by Fox on Mon Apr 11, 2016 4:01 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Leon
Joined: 31 May 2010
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| Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2016 4:01 pm Post subject: |
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| trueblue wrote: |
| Swartz wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
| Beyond that, if Mr. Trump cannot even influence the party leaders sufficiently to bring them in line behind him, how could he possibly hope to influence the governments of Mexico, China, Russia, and wherever else as he has promised to do? You can rabble rouse America's peasantry easily enough, but the same thing isn't going to work on people living in other countries. If nothing else, there's a test of real leadership ability here, and after we were lectured on how masterfully Mr. Trump manages everyone's egos and what a superb master of persuasion he is, it would be a shame for him if he were unable to bring either ability to bear in defense of his candidacy, wouldn't it? |
For someone who pretends to be such a deep and principled philosophical thinker, you really turn into an intellectually duplicitous, handrubbing stereotype whenever you push out an innervated dispatch related to Trumpian nationalism. It's quite telling, actually. Referring to the White working class that has been disenfranchised professionally and demographically for decades as “America's peasantry” (and in comparison to the democrat's industrious Afro-Mestizo base? Please, Shlomo…), calling the one person stepping up to speak for those people a rebel rouser, then producing more of these ratty sneers about what a shame it'll be if the people's overwhelming choice is ultimately bypassed at the end of the process. Nothing ignites terror in the nomad from the shtetl than the thought of those around him collectivizing and expressing their interests as a people. He knows it's eventually bound to turn on his own since his own do so much to undermine that collective identity. |
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TB do you have anything original to add, or should we just expect other people's thoughts from you, either from articles or bolding other's posts?
If these white people have actually been disenfranchised like you describe, then why get upset when someone calls them peasants? That is basically what you are saying, but you get offended when someone other than Trump is politically incorrect? Also, Trump is not a rebel rouser, he is a rabble rouser, as in those disenfranchised whites are a rabble (again the way you describe them fits the dictionary definition of the word), and it is beyond a doubt that he has roused them.
Also, is it not sterotypical the way that you characterize someone, who happens to be Jewish, in a sterotypical manner. That Swartz, what a sterotypical white nationalist/supremacist/whatever.
Trumpian nationalism, what a strange world we live in. |
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