The RNC is facing multiple fronts of mutiny and revolt ahead of the convention from the vocal and growing contingent of delegates who vehemently oppose Donald Trump and who firmly believe they should have the right to vote their conscience. It’s war.
Kendal Unruh is leading the ‘Dump Trump’ delegate revolt (and making a splash doing it), and this weekend, in an interview with the Daily Wire, Unruh claims that she now has enough votes on the rules committee to unbind the delegates. This comes on the same weekend that we found out that Colorado delegates are moving to block Trump’s VP pick and another committee could shut out anti-Trump delegates. Like I said: war.
First, here’s The Daily Wire on Unruh’s big news:
Over the weekend, The Daily Wire had the opportunity to speak with Kendal Unruh, a member of the Colorado Republican delegation to the Republican National Convention. Unruh is also a member of the Rules Committee at the RNC, and a leading advocate for a vote that would unbind the delegates from the candidates to which their state primaries are pledged.
Unruh explained that “28 committee members are required to pass a minority report, which then goes to the convention floor for all delegates to vote on. It then requires a simple majority to pass.” She added that she does “have the 28 votes required for the minority report,” continuing, “Not everyone who is with us is willing to be public yet, due in part to the threats being made by Trump’s campaign and the RNC itself.”
Unruh also laid out her justification, saying that it is essentially the only responsible way for delegates to fulfill their duty as they are charged to:
It is the duty of the delegates to represent the best interests of their states and to select a Republican candidate who actually represents our party and who can beat Hillary in November. That’s not Donald Trump. We don’t live in a straight democracy, where majority rule has the absolute say. We have a measured, representative form of government that allows time for discussion, fact-finding, and wisdom before our elected representatives make the final decision. Many new facts have come out since the early primaries that should disqualify Trump, and the delegates have historically always been the final stop-gate through which our party’s nominee must pass.
That is a somewhat esoteric argument but one that anti-Trump delegates and advocates will undoubtedly latch onto. The Hill notes that many Trump supporters are skeptical of Unruh’s chances, to put it mildly, but also that Trump delegates will be pushing for their own rules changes to attempt to put a stop to “Never Trump” delegates. And speaking of delegates stopping things …
News broke this weekend that Donald is seriously considering a pro-choice Democrat for his Vice Presidential pick. That has prompted an understandable uproar (and a few “I Told You So” faces from me) and, more than that, another anti-Trump front. Delegates have put together a plan for making a change during the Rules Committee meeting this week to “to reject Trump’s vice presidential nominee and present their own alternative.” Leon has more on that here.
The Contest Committee also met on Sunday with the possibility, prompting rumors of efforts to block anti-Trumpers. There’s no report on the meeting yet, but we know one thing, they are definitely already trying to stop delegates who don’t like Trump from even attending the convention:
on #freethedelegates call we're now hearing from a 17-y/o VT delegate who says the Trump campaign filed a credentials contest against him
— Rosie Gray (@RosieGray) July 11, 2016
It’s open war in the Republican Party. It is the entirely predictable result of the series of idiotic blunders and petty bickering among the other, non-Trump candidates and their entrenched followings that delivered the primary to Trump.
Should Trump weather the storm and come out of the convention the victor, he’ll be the first GOP nominee ever to have had more votes against him than for him in the primary. That is not a mandate. That’s an error. And now we are seeing some of the consequences of that error.
There will be more.
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