Well, the long awaited Rules committee meeting at the convention is underway, and a backroom deal may have already been cut. The contingent seeking to unbind the delegates, led by Colorado delegate Kendal Unruh, had hoped to draw out and protract the meeting in a bid to get their proposed rule changes to the floor. Fellow NeverTrump delegate Ken Cuccinelli’s support had been seen as crucial to the effort to get at least 28 members of the Rules Committee to go along with this.

Cuccinelli, however, is allegedly in the process of cutting a deal with Priebus to streamline the meeting in exchange for modifications to the nominating process in 2020 that would allow candidates like Ted Cruz a better chance of success. It looks, at least, like Cuccinelli has conceded that stopping Trump in 2016 is not going to happen and that the best strategical move is to not make life so easy for early front runners in the future.

Unbinding the delegates was always a Hail Mary play and it’s still possible that there will be a floor vote on the measure, which I would assume will likely fail. I do think it is important for as many delegates as possible be allowed to register their refusal to support Trump, which of course is exactly the embarrassment that Priebus is trying to avoid. But the opening salvos in the war to stop Trump at the convention do not look to be going the direction of the #DelegatesUnbound crowd.