UPDATE: I wrote this diary shortly before Ted Cruz suspended his campaign. While the presidential balloting aspect is more or less out of play, the significance of the other attributes still hold.
For weeks, the big story in the Republican primary process is the quest to determine the party’s representative to the presidential ticket. For the first time in recent history, neither one of the two frontrunners for he presidential nomination have run as a representative of the GOP Establishment, or the non-conservative, non-constitutional wing of the party. While the great battle for delegates have been fought mainly in the popular election process binding delegates to each winner for the presidential nomination, an even more important battle is being waged at the local and state GOP levels mainly through the brilliant ground game of Ted Cruz: control of the actual delegates themselves.
While Donald Trump is winning most of the popular votes and first-ballot bound delegates, Ted Cruz is working tirelessly at obtaining delegates that are more in line with real conservative (actually, original constitutionalist) values. Obviously, Cruz’s main goal is to win the immediate presidency, which can only occur by holding Donald Trump under 1,237 delegates on the first ballot. (Pragmatically, he needs to be kept under 1,150 bound delegates or so before the first ballot to ensure the carryover effect doesn’t produce the remainder of the winning margin in unbounds, but I digress.) But presidential nominations are only part of the game.
For the GOP Convention is not called the GOP Presidential-Nominating Convention, as if it were its only purpose. In fact, the major purpose of the convention is to set the agenda of the Republican Party itself, including its election bylaws, party functioning apparatus, media outreach, and other important processes. While the presidential nominee may be considered the titular head of the party during the election season, if he loses in the general election, he immediately loses any semblence of control of the party.
Donald Trump is a showman, not an organization specialist. His only appeal is through charade and facetious pretense, with little to no support from effective, pragmatic followers. Therefore, his appeal in this pivotal election cycle obfuscates the underlying battle within the Repubican Party: what direction does it go from here?
The answer lies in one battle: Control of the delegates. While Trump calls the process “rigged, undemocratic, the epitome of insider politics,” in reality what Ted Cruz is doing is uniting the real representatives of the party in the direction in which it was founded. The Republican Party, at its core, is a constitutional, limited government tool that the people use to govern and empower themselves, their families, and their communities, through the laws of their own making, within their own states.
Ironically, Trump is almost right: The process has been rigged through many of the past conventions. Rigged in favor of an elitist, out-of-touch Establishment that represented crony values, “get-along” values in which the leaders of this incestuous movement cavorted and caucused more with Democrats than their own conservative electorate. From Nixon to Ford, to the Bushes, Dole, McCain, and Romney, the GOP Convention was run mostly by the delegates who represented the crony socialist minions, not the electorate who are, at their core, anti-establishment conservatives, even if they don’t profess or even vote as conservative.
In short, what Ted Cruz has accomplished with regard to securing delegates transcends the presidential race. The delegates that will remain loyal to Ted Cruz will not just represent 2nd-ballot (or later ballot) presidential nominating votes. For the first time, a cohesive, committed group of consitutional conservatives will control the actual helm of the Republican apparatus. While Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Matt Drudge, and other outed non-conservative, neo-populists spew Trump’s lies about subverting the democratic process, real grassroots individuals will come together for the first time in Cleveland and vote party rules. And changes from those rules, boy, will they be a’comin’!
For starters, they can set up rules for future presidential delegate allocations, such as required closed primaries for all states. Obviously, states can make their own rules, but their delegate representation can be severely limited as punishment. In addition, rules can be made to reward states who have a higher percentage of Republican voters. Some states like New York and California, with high socialist Democrat percentages, should be punished with lower delegate counts. For instance, more Republicans voted in Wisconsin than in New York.
In addition, the national party leadership itself should be axed in Cleveland (yes that means you, Priebus!), with more conservative-leaning heads elected in its stead. Such is the power of the Cruz-acquired delegation! Destroy the apparatus that has permeated the stench of rotting Trump-ism throughout the party, and instill actual conservatives in leadership roles. While Mitch McConnell will still control the GOP senate, whether as majority or minority leader (really, at this point, what difference does it make?!), if the GOP party leadership is more conservative, it will allow someone like Senator Ted Cruz (if he’s not president) to finally effect more influence on actual legislation, as the GOP will now back him, not McConnell. In addition, GOP resources can be directed toward conservatives in Congressional or state races, not against them. Finally, consider the fact that the (admittedly super-long shot) Article V Convention of the States will now officially have a Party who endorses its concept, and finally the full power of the Cruz operation has shown its potential to a worn-down electorate.
Cleveland will provide the country with a contested, tumultuous experience through the lens of the presidential race. But if done right, the Cruz delegation should not only make a statement in the presidential nomination process, but in the very direction that the Republican Party must go in order to have any chance at survival. It may be too late to win the presidency or to stop the enthrenchment of the Obama agenda, but it’s not too late to right this ship that has been severely damaged for decades. We shall see what happens, but for his efforts: Bravo, Ted Cruz!
