.

NEWS AND VIEWS THAT IMPACT LIMITED CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT

"There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with
power to endanger the public liberty." - - - - John Adams

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

The GOP is gearing up for a brokered convention


Primaries and debates are like gutting a fish on live TV for a solid year.
The Presidential Primary system is broken.  The GOP should take a few steps back in time , abolish most of the primaries and have delegates selected by state party caucuses or state conventions.


Because of ultra-expensive TV, radio and direct mail cartels of millionaires control and fund modern primaries

  • Endless debates and primaries turn the system into a zoo where candidates must entertain the masses like tap-dancing monkeys at a circus.
  • Dignity is thrown out the window as candidates attempt to gut their opponents on live TV for the entertainment of the press and the public.
  • The party is weakened in the eyes of the public.
  • It is time to abolish most of the primaries.


No other democratic nation on earth uses these insane primaries to select their national candidates.  Now after nearly a year of destroying Republican opponents from coast to coast we might take the insanity to a brokered convention on live TV.  Just in case, all sides are getting ready.

For the first time in a generation, Republicans are preparing for the possibility that their presidential nomination could be decided at their national convention rather than on the campaign trail, a prospect that would upend one of the rituals of modern politics.
.
Party leaders, activists and the campaigns are for the first time taking seriously the possibility that neither he nor anyone else will get to that total.  Campaign and party lawyers are dusting off their party rule books, running through decades-old procedural arcana and studying the most recent convention-floor fight, between Ronald Reagan and President Gerald R. Ford in 1976 reports the New York Times.

Candidates are tap dancing monkeys at a circus.
Insane endless campaigning has turned candidates into
tap dancing moneys at a circus to entertain the press
and bored public.

“It’s more likely than anything since ’76, there’s no question,” said Robert M. Duncan, a former Republican national chairman who was a delegate at the convention that year and presides over the Committee on Contests, the party council that would hear disputes about delegates. 


They would embark on an unscripted, contentious and televised drama that has not played out in 36 years, a period in which both major party conventions have become slickly produced and highly choreographed pep rallies kicking off the general election campaign. 
.
Rick Santorum has hired a delegate specialist to comb through the patchwork of state-by-state rules and to find unpledged delegates who could swing to him in a floor fight, an effort Mr. Romney’s campaign says it is prepared to counter. Newt Gingrich’s team is expected to hold on to its delegates even if it is clear that he has fallen short — if only to keep Mr. Romney from reaching a majority.
                                                                        .
The Republican National Committee has alerted the Committee on Contests to be ready for action, preparing for the possibility of courtroomlike hearings run by lawyers that could decide whether the nomination is settled before party members take their seats. 


(New York Times)

It is time to return candidate selection to the party conventions
1880   -   So many candidates and it was all resolved in a few days at the national
conventions with near zero damage to the parties.

1880 Republican National Convention in Chicago.
A view inside the Interstate Exposition Building (known as the "Glass Palace") during the convention; James Garfield (center, right) is on the podium, waiting to speak. 

No comments: