Winners and losers included...

July 15, 2016

It was the last stand for the “free the delegates” push, the last-ditch effort of anti-Trump stalwarts who tried scheme after scheme to derail the Trump train even as it was about to pull into the station.

Just when so much attention was focused so intently on the terror attack in France, the #NeverTrump movement gave up the ghost of a chance it had to throw a wrench into the works only hours before the start of the party nominating convention in Cleveland.

As NPR noted: “In a marathon 15-hour meeting, the Republican National Convention’s Rules Committee voted down proposals that would have freed up convention delegates to ignore their states’ primary and caucus results and vote for any candidate they wanted.” So a big win for the brash businessman and a big loss for those who tried to give him the business. But there were other winners and losers for the week as the RNC is getting set to kick off.

An analysis of the pre-convention goings on was summed up perfectly by The Hill:

It’s Donald Trump’s Republican Party now.

Who would have thought such a thing possible a year ago…even six months ago — possibly not even Trump himself.

The party platform — the GOP’s guiding policy document — as The Hill notes, reflects major elements of Trump’s positions on immigration and trade. Those include support for a wall running the length of the U.S.-Mexico border and striking the only reference to the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Trump also won the support of the establishment against which his insurgent campaign has so successfully positioned itself. Party Chairman Reince Priebus reportedly worked hard to build a bridge over troubled GOP waters in order to help unify the party and prevent a convention fight for all the world to witness.

According to The Hill, “Priebus went all in for Trump from an early date and the committee members from every state and territory who run the national party have followed suit.”

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins was able to pull together a strong enough coalition to keep happy social conservatives who have found their principles and positions falling out of favor of late. The GOP platform, at least for this election cycle, will oppose gay marriage and declare the benefits of traditional family arrangements.

A big loser in the rigorous push-and-pull of pre-convention debates and dealings was Trump’s main rival in the delegate hunt, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. He wasn’t present to provide generalship for his forces, and that may have hurt efforts to lay groundwork for a possible 2020 presidential run by the conservative icon.

A move to have the party incentivize states to have closed primaries — ones in which only Republicans are allowed to vote — ultimately failed. Some of the pro-Cruz folks felt that Trump was able to dominate in the delegate selection process largely because Democrats and Independents were allowed to vote for him.

So, it’s Donald Trump’s Republican Party now. We’ll soon see whether, as the life of the party, he can give the GOP something big to celebrate come November.

http://www.westernjournalism.com/thepoint/2016/07/15/just-happened-rnc-makes-perfectly-clear-whether-now-trumps-republican-party/