BETWEEN THE LINES

GOP ELITE WOULD LOVE PRIMARIES LIKE DEMS'

Exclusive: Joseph Farah on Republican establishment's utter failure to have its way

The Republican establishment would apparently like to see an undemocratic primary system in which there is little correlation between votes of the people and who wins the nomination.

In 2016, we’ve seen Hillary Clinton lose votes in states like New Hampshire and Iowa and win more delegates than Bernie Sanders.

We’ve even seen her campaign manager Robby Mook brag about how the so-called “Democratic Party” has rigged its nominating process to favor Clinton. He gleefully briefed conference call participants that there is more of the same to come in Illinois, Ohio and Missouri.

Of the 20 contests between Clinton and Sanders, she has won 12 and he has won eight. But Clinton has amassed 1,130 delegates to Sanders’ 499.

How does this work?

The Democratic National Committee doesn’t allocate delegates proportionate to the will of the voters. Instead it calculates tallies from a combination of “pledged delegates,” which are earned from the actual votes of real people, and “unpledged delegates,” better known as “superdelegates.” Superdelegates are Democratic officeholders, as well as 21 “distinguished members,” a group made up of former presidents, vice presidents and former DNC chairmen.

In other words, superdelegates are Democratic political insiders and D.C. power brokers including many lobbyists.

Get it?

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Now consider the protests over the victories by Donald Trump and Ted Cruz – the only two Republican candidates who are continually racking up wins in state after state. What are Mitt Romney, Karl Rove and Lindsey Graham suggesting? They are strategizing about a way to force a brokered convention in which no candidate emerges with enough delegates to win the nomination on the first ballot. After the first ballot, delegates will no longer be bound to vote for their pledged candidates. The result is a free-for-all in which a Mitt Romney or equivalent can wind up as the nominee.

What do you think about that?

Does it sound like the entire primary process was a sham?

Keep in mind the process for amassing delegates and winning the nomination was set up by Romney in the first place. As the nominee in 2012 and the titular head of the party, he and his people got to write the rules. They were specifically written to ensure that no renegade candidate – someone other than a Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio – could possibly win.

But things didn’t work out like they planned.

Bush, in particular, was going to spend big money early and sew up a victory under those rules. If he failed, Rubio would be there as a stop-gap measure.

But Bush and Rubio failed to capture the hearts and imaginations of the Republican grass-roots. In fact, they failed miserably. Money didn’t talk. Instead, Trump and Cruz, spending a tiny fraction of the money committed by big donors and super PACS, have prevailed. Big money failed to have the intended effect – buying the nomination.

But instead of accepting the will of the people as expressed under the rules they created, the GOP elite are looking for a way to deny Trump and/or Cruz – both of whom have run as outsiders, against the Washington establishment.

In fact, if you are wondering why Rubio and John Kasich are still running, it could be because of the hidden hand of the GOP establishment, according to a report in WND earlier this week.

“Democrats,” by definition, are supposed to believe in government by direct expression of the will of the people. “Republicans,” on the other hand, are supposed to believe in representative government responsive and accountable to the will of the people.

It sure looks like neither party is living up to its name.

Maybe the two-party system has just outlived its usefulness.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2016/03/gop-elite-would-love-primaries-like-dems/#WkxSfCS1YFfehH2G.99