David Drucker reports for the Washington Examiner on reaction among Republican National Convention delegates to Donald Trump’s recent remarks about the presidential nomination process.
Republican delegates are warning Donald Trump that attacks on them and their party’s presidential selection process could backfire, sinking him at the convention or damaging his prospects in November if he wins the nomination.
Trump, the front-runner for the nomination, has called the GOP’s arcane rules for nominating a president “rigged” and referred to the process for choosing delegates as “corrupt.” But it’s the delegates who are charged with picking a nominee if Trump can’t secure a binding, 1,237 majority in the primaries — and the New York billionaire’s broadsides aren’t going over well.
“I have never met a group of more honest, hardworking, dedicated people. We all understand it’s our job to get the winner of the process elected, not to pick favorites,” Peter Goldberg, chairman of the Alaska Republican Party, told the Washington Examiner on Wednesday. “We are working our tails off to be transparent.”
“It’s offensive and it speaks to a lack of knowledge about this process. I think everyone needs to go back and take civics lesson again,” added a member of the Republican National Committee who requested anonymity in order to speak candidly because this individual will be serving as a convention delegate in Cleveland this July. …
… Delegates could have enormous power at a contested convention. The delegate pool is comprised of RNC members, plus more than 2,000 others, including alternate delegates, that are going through the election and selection process in states across the country. These activists often comprise the bulwark of the volunteer ground forces presidential campaigns need to help them get the out the vote and win in key battlegrounds.
So it was hardly by accident that Cruz defended their integrity against Trump’s charges that they are on the take and participating in a system that is un-democratic. The senator had concluded a news conference here Wednesday afternoon but stopped half way out the door of a hotel conference room here to make this point when asked if his meeting with RNC members constituted colluding with the GOP establishment.
“The strength of our campaign and the strength of our party is the grassroots,” Cruz said. “And, it is not beneficial for the party or for the country to have a presidential candidate that looks down on the grassroots. I am happy to go where the grassroots are, to ask for their supports and to answer their questions at any and all times.”