Following Trump’s recent comments about the Hispanic judge in his Trump University case, there has been another outcry among Republicans to replace Trump as our nominee. Yesterday, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan called Trump’s recent remarks the “textbook definition of a racist comment.” Doesn’t sound like he’s on the Trump Train.
Is it still possible to replace Trump? The simple answer is yes. A week prior to the convention the Rules Committee could change the rules. It’s our party, our rules. The rules can be changed and delegates unbound on the first ballot. From the Washington Post:
Curly Haugland, a longtime Republican National Committee member from North Dakota, is an outspoken advocate for unbinding delegates. He has long been dismissed by party leaders — one former RNC official said that he is on a “watch list of troublemakers” — but Haugland is so devoted to the idea that he is publishing a new e-book, “Unbound,” set for release this week.
“The delegate freedom movement’s alive and well,” Haugland said in an interview. With several states yet to elect their delegations, Haugland is hopeful that “by the time the delegates are seated and ready to vote, 100 percent of them will know they’re free to vote however they want to.”
Earlier today on his radio talk show Hugh Hewitt argued that the Republican Party must change the rules at the Convention,
“It’s like ignoring stage-four cancer. You can’t do it, you gotta go attack it,” Hewitt said. “And right now the Republican Party is facing — the plane is headed towards the mountain after the last 72 hours.”
Hewitt added that he disagreed with Lindsey Graham and Mark Kirk who have said they will not vote for the nominee.
“I wanna support the nominee of the party, but I think the party ought to change the nominee. Because we’re going to get killed with this nominee.”
“I have never said that!” he stressed. “I waited until after the primary was over, I stayed Switzerland to the end, and in 72 hours, dovetailed to that.”
“They ought to get together and let the convention decide,” he concluded. “And if Donald Trump pulls over a makeover in the next 4 to 5 weeks, great, they can keep him. It would be better if he had done so 5 weeks ago.”
We elected delegates to the National Convention to represent us. If they feel nominating Trump is not in our best interests because he can’t possibly win the Presidency, they owe it to us to replace him as the nominee. Reince Priebus should not be controlling the rules of our party. Our party, our rules. More from the Post:
Eric O’Keefe, a longtime conservative activist favoring term limits and changing RNC rules, said that concerns about Trump’s nomination present “a great opportunity to revive the party as an independent institution.”
Delegates sent to a convention “are not agents of the state party and they’re not agents of the state government when they’re convened in Cleveland,” he said.
“What we’re experiencing here is a Priebus-led power grab of the delegates,” O’Keefe added. “The headquarters staff doesn’t trust delegates and it wants to increase its own power. It doesn’t want delegates making the big decisions.”
Delegates are exactly who should be making the big decisions! That’s what we elected them to do. We didn’t elect Reince Priebus!
Another way Trump can be replaced at the convention is a “conscience clause.” From Heavy.com :
Some delegates have suggested proposing a “conscience clause” to the RNC Rules Committee. This would be a rule that stipulates that delegates should generally vote for who they are assigned, unless the candidate in question fundamentally contradicts the delegate’s set of beliefs.
Guy Short, Republican delegate from Colorado, plans to introduce this clause at the upcoming convention, and if adopted, it would mean that thousands of Trump’s delegates could suddenly become free agents if they feel voting for him would violate their conservative principles. It would no longer matter how any of the delegates’ states voted in the primary.
Ted Kennedy tried this at the Democrat Convention in 1980. It didn’t work then, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t work at our convention.
More here from Business Insider. Ace of Spades asks ” Who is the GOP Going to Install as Its Nominee Instead of Trump”?
