Tuesday, September 22, 2015

GOP'S ESTABLISHMENT'S NEW RULES BACKFIRE

BETWEEN THE LINES

WHAT TRUMP, CARSON ACCOMPLISHED SO FAR

Exclusive: Joseph Farah explains how GOP establishment's new rules backfired

I’ve been waiting to write this column for some time.
What I was waiting for happened Sunday, when the New York Times finally published a story I expected sometime earlier.
But let me summarize it for you – without the spin.
After the disastrous 2012 election, in which establishment Republican nominee Mitt Romney tanked, fairing worse even than John McCain in 2008, the powers that be within the Republican National Committee knew they would face significant challenges from non-establishment candidates in 2016. 
So they hatched a devious plan to ensure they could continue to nominate establishment “losers,” as Donald Trump would say – the kind of candidates that have been selected consistently by the party since 1988. While not all of those nominees ultimately lost the presidential race, they were still “losers” because they betrayed Republican principles. They had one other common denominator: They were both named Bush.
The Republican establishment correctly figured there would be many challengers in the 2016 campaign. The plan was to select one establishment candidate with high name recognition and a huge political war chest who would do well enough to sew up the nomination under new rules to speed up the process. It would help, of course, if the candidate’s name was Bush.
The new rules crafted by the Republican elite would enable their pick to win the nomination by only getting 30 percent of the vote in early primaries.
What they weren’t counting on, however, were two things – the Donald Trump factor and the shocking popularity of another anti-establishment candidate, Dr. Ben Carson.
Both of them out-poll Jeb Bush consistently – both in national polls and in state polls. Together, they virtually ensure that Bush cannot achieve 30 percent in any primary. Nationally, he polls below 10 percent, while Trump and Carson are both in high double-digits.
Here’s the way the New York Times, big-time fans of the Republican establishment, by the way, reported it: “When gloomy Republican Party leaders regrouped after President Obama’s 2012 re-election, they were intent on enhancing the party’s chances of winning back the White House. The result: new rules to head off a prolonged and divisive nomination fight, and to make certain the Republican standard-bearer is not pulled too far to the right before Election Day.”
“But as the sprawling class of 2016 Republican presidential candidates tumbled out of their chaotic second debate last week, it was increasingly clear that those rule changes – from limiting the number of debates to adjusting how delegates are allocated – had failed to bring to the nominating process the order and speed that party leaders had craved,” the Times story continued.
“And they said they were increasingly convinced that Donald J. Trump could exploit openings created by the party’s revised rules to capture the nomination or, short of that, to amass enough delegates to be a power broker at the convention,” said the report.
But it’s actually much worse for the Republican establishment and its fans at the New York Times and Democratic Party than the Times lets on.
The plot hatched by Romney, as the party leader following his 2012 election debacle, helps the front-runner – whoever gets the largest percentage of votes in early primaries.
Either Trump or Carson are in a position to put the race away in the spring of 2016, or, at the very least, make it a two-man race.
I’ve been explaining this to friends and family members for some time now. Even friends and family members looked at me like I was insane.
But it’s simple arithmetic – arithmetic that is scaring the establishments of both parties and the media elite alike.
Now, anything can still happen in a long campaign. Trump could stumble. Carson could stumble. Some other candidate could catch fire.
But what are the chances Jeb Bush is going to catch fire?
Zero. Zip. Nada. Zilch.
Before Trump entered the race, I was telling anyone who would listen that my friend Ben Carson was going to be heard from – that he was going to do far, far better than almost anyone expected.
When Trump announced, I knew he would have tremendous appeal – mostly from anti-establishment, grass-roots Republican voters who were looking to upset the apple cart.
Carson has not been hurt by Trump.
Trump has not been hurt by Carson.
Jeb Bush is the big loser as anti-establishment Republicans mostly rally around one or the other.
The worst nightmare for the establishment Republicans, establishment Democrats and establishment media is a Trump-Carson ticket or a Carson-Trump ticket.
Why?
Because it will win.
It doesn’t matter if the Democrats nominate Hillary, or Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden.
The establishment Republicans and their enablers in the Democratic Party and media elite outsmarted themselves back in 2012 with new rules they gleefully concocted and kept largely secret from the American people.
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/09/what-trump-carson-accomplished-so-far/#betmZIJFwjsWUbjx.99

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