Dec. 24, 2015

Critics of Republican presidential primary front-runner and billionaire Donald Trump, not having encountered his type of self-reliant, self-funded, brash and blunt candidacy, have taken to lobbing challenges to his ballot access to oppose him.

Unsuccessfully, so far.

But analysts do point out that getting the GOP nomination actually is a laborious process of lining up dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of delegates who are party faithful, and they wonder if the earthquake-generating candidate can establish the foot soldier network to do that.

One of the complaints to Trump’s ballot status happened in New Hampshire, where a former state Republican Party executive, Fergus Cullen, claimed Trump should not be allowed on the GOP ballot for several reasons, including that Trump has a history of being a Democrat and independent, and Trump’s views, “expressed over decades, are inconsistent with the Republican Party platform and the Republican Party of New Hampshire’s Statement of Principles and By Laws.”

A report in WMUR explained that after a hearing “that lasted two minutes, the five-member commission voted unanimously that the challenge filed by Fergus Cullen was without merit.”

New Hampshire Ballot Commission Chairman Brad Cook described Cullen’s challenge as “grandstanding of the first order, and I didn’t appreciate it.”

“It was trying to make an editorial statement,” he said. “The commission – regardless of what anybody thinks of the merits or demerits, or the philosophy or anything about a candidate – our sole role is to figure out if a filing was legal and accurate.”

There was another challenge mounted in South Carolina, right about the time of the first GOP presidential debate when Trump refused to promise he would not leave the party and stage a third-party run. He has since stated he’s committed to the party.

At the time, according to Political Insider, GOP officials called for all candidates to affirm they would support the “nominees and platform of the Republican Party” in the 2016 election.

Trump originally said he wouldn’t want to run as a third-party candidate but needed to option to ensure he was treated fairly by the GOP during the primary season. He later said his plans did not include any such departure from the party.

There even was the report this week from the Christian Times Newspaper that said it learned several states “have all REMOVED Trump’s name from their state’s upcoming Republican primaries.”

“Election judges in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, North Carolina, and Florida all allegedly forwarded messages to the Trump campaign on Wednesday informing the Republican front-runner that his candidacy was invalid per state laws,” the report said.

“If not resolved by February 1st, Trump’s campaign for the Republican nomination is effectively over.”

The report was followed within hours by a comment on the Newsfoxes blog that no such thing had happened.

“This story is false. If you see this one around, spread it with your friends. This disinformation has come from several sources on the internet. Be prepared by knowing what they will try …”

But commentator David Wasserman at Fivethirtyeight noted there’s more to winning a nomination than leading – by huge margins – in virtually every national political poll.

He explained how the GOP’s nomination procedures favor a moderate candidate – a Marco Rubio, Carly Fiorina or Jeb Bush.

“In reality, the GOP nominating contest will be decided by an intricate, state-by-state slog for the 2,472 delegates at stake between February and June. And thanks to the Republican National Committee’s allocation rules, the votes of ‘Blue Zone’ Republicans – the more moderate GOP primary voters who live in Democratic-leaning states and congressional districts – could weigh more than those of more conservative voters who live in deeply red zones. Put another way: The Republican voters who will have little to no sway in the general election could have some of the most sway in the primary.”

He explained that there are 1,247 delegates at stake in states won by Obama last time, compared with just 1,166 in Romney states.

“The RNC allows state parties some leeway in how to award delegates to candidates. In a few states, including Florida, Ohio and Arizona, the primary winner wins all the state’s delegates. In most others, delegates are allocated either proportionally to votes or by the winner in each congressional district,” he said.

The bottom line is that gathering delegates is a vote-by-vote, doorknock-by-doorknock process that requires a campaign organization heavy on the grass-roots.

Commentator John Colson at the Aspen Times, not a Trump fan, continued, “Last weekend, the New York Times, in a front-page article, noted that Trump may be holding his own in the polls (though Cruz seems to have pulled ahead of Trump in Iowa), but has not got the kind of ground-level organization in Iowa that historically has taken candidates from wannabes to winners.

“Iowa, as the article points out, has stuck with its caucus system for deciding who gets the support of the state’s Republicans, just as Colorado has (Iowa’s caucus is on Feb. 1, Colorado’s is a month later). And caucuses, as any political wonk knows, are very complicated processes that have proven unwinnable to candidates who lack grassroots organizations.”

However, Trump’s entry into the presidential race, his self-funding and the practice of lobbing verbal dynamite into the discussion, have changed much.

In a Hotair commentary, Jazz Shaw wrote about the New Hampshire challenge.

“In his usual, understated fashion, Trump’s campaign manager Corey Lewandowski responded by saying that if this move were approved, ‘Mr. Trump’s supporters would probably riot in the streets of New Hampshire.’

“Normally I’d shrug off a comment like that as typical campaign rhetoric, but in this case it’s probably much closer to reality than hyperbole,” Shaw wrote. “Just this weekend I had a conversation with one family in Nashua who I’ve gotten to know quite well through my various trips there and I could easily picture them looking around for some pitchforks and torches. These are people who are heavily involved in the state legislature battleground and really have their finger on the pulse of the GOP community up there. I’m here to tell you that they are All Trump All The Time.”

Shaw continued, “The most common words I hear associated with the real estate tycoon in these conversations are fight and fighter. The dire nature of the situation with ISIS and the very real and present threat to America posed by radical Islamic terror has people paying attention and they are looking for somebody who is ready to fight. It’s a very H.L. Mencken atmosphere in some quarters of New Hampshire and Trump’s appeal seems to be that he’s the guy who is ready to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.”

The far left Huffington Post even commented on how far the presidential race politics have moved since Trump’s entry.

“As Trump continues to not only lead in all the primary polls but also to drive the debate for all the other contenders, it would be hard to make the case that Trump hasn’t completed what might be called a hostile takeover of the Republican Party brand. This could always change, of course – nothing is ever set in stone in a presidential race. But for the time being, Trump’s not only the party frontrunner, he is actually defining the race for everyone else.

“This state of affairs is downright terrifying to the establishment Republican Party machine. Trump is, almost by definition, uncontrollable. He could do or say anything, and often does. The party elders have watched the rise of Trump and seen their own power diminish.”

And Salon reported some longtime GOP supporters have even been considering ways to secure more influence over election results.

“One of those people is billionaire T. Boone Pickens, who has thrown money at Jeb Bush and other Republican candidates only to see them wither in the face of the Trump onslaught. This is not the return on investment that Pickens was looking for, so he’s written a LinkedIn post or blog or whatever laying out his ‘big idea’ for making sure that in the future we don’t just allow any old person to run for president: a bipartisan committee that will pre-approve acceptable candidates for the presidency.”

The report said Pickens wrote, “Certainly we can do better than what we’re doing. We now have a presidential election process that penalizes success and accomplishment and rewards those without battle scars from business or politics. You don’t have a record of achievement? Well, then the media shies from tough scrutiny. My big idea for 2016 is to put together a bipartisan screening committee that vets presidential candidates like we do anyone else applying for a job and recommends the best candidates possible. We have people running for president now who don’t even have experience running a lemonade stand.”

Said Salon, “Pickens is having a moment of panic because Trump is winning despite not having gone through the appropriate channels for a presidential front-runner, so now he wants to set up an additional hurdle in the form of this silly committee.”

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