Donald Trump is crying foul over the Republican delegate selection and allocation process. Senator Ted Cruz recently won 34 Colorado delegates during the caucuses that were held in the state this last weekend. Trump claims that Cruz had a “voterless” victory and was instead simply handed those delegates. HUH…say what now??? Listen (and see) it for yourself below:
SOOooooo, the State of Colorado decided to just give its 34 delegates to Cruz…no questions asked? That seems hard to believe but that is exactly what Trump is saying. After reading a seemingly simple explanation of the Colorado caucus rules on the Denver Post, I admit that I too was still not quite sure what the heck happened in Colorado concerning Republican delegates, so I continued my very unaggressive research. It seems that the key difference between the Democrat and Republican process is that Democratic caucuses held straw polls to determine the preferred candidate whereas Republican caucuses did not. For Republicans, only those delegates who won at various levels (neighborhood, county, and state) were allowed to vote in the Colorado caucuses but registered Republicans who were NOT delegates could only observe. In a nutshell, the 34 delegates selected to attend the RNC in Cleveland were voted for by other delegates. All of the delegates were eligible to compete for a seat at the convention and were not required to be bound or pledged to a particular candidate. According to a Colorado delegate who participated, of those who decided to run, most of them ran on an “anti-Trump” message. This apparently resonated positively with their peers who voted for them. Also, those present at the caucuses noted that the voting information provided by the Trump campaign had errors on them!
As I now understand it, Trump’s claim that he lost in a voter-less contest is NOT accurate. There was a lot of voting going on in the Colorado caucuses; however, the voting was only among delegates. It is important to keep in mind that those delegates were elected by members of their communities (neighborhood and county) and therefore represent them. After all, the United States is a representative democracy rather than a direct democracy.
Although Trump is crying foul and saying how unfair Colorado was to him, unfortunately the State made their plans known back in August of last year. All of the Republican candidates were aware that Colorado decided not to hold a straw poll.
So how did Donald Trump respond to the Colorado Republican State party in regards to all of this? Well, hell hath no fury like a Donald Trump scorned! SOMEHOW, the cell phone number belonging to the chairman of the state’s Republican Party got released and scores of angry Trump supporters from all over were unleashed! Poor guy said that he had to just shut his phone off! Yikes! That’s all for my opinion on this topic. Let me know what you think by responding to the poll below:
Thanks for “listening” to me whine. Hopefully my whining has made you think. If so, tell your friends/family/colleagues that you heard it through the Political Great Whine!
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