Real Clear Politics – by Ian Schwartz
Former Colorado state Republican party chairman Ryan Call talked to Laura Ingraham today to explain the delegation-selection process works and how it “cuts out any semblance of democracy or the popular will.” Call said the statewide convention that chooses the delegates reinforces all the worst stereotypes of the party.
“The very time we should be opening up our doors and being more open and transparent, and welcoming people into our Party, we’ve essentially made the decision to close it off and make it more cumbersome and more difficult. And, to prevent the ability of people to have their voice heard in this process. You’re reinforcing all of the very worst stereotypes about the Party and I, frankly, am very concerned about the way voters are going to feel,” Call told Ingraham.
Transcript, via Laura Ingraham Show:
Ingraham: The August 25th announcement that they would no longer do the presidential preference poll at their caucus, my spidey-senses went up when that happened. Was I correct to, at the time, note that this was a sign that they were not going to be bound by the people of Colorado selecting Trump. If that was a risk, they wanted to cut that off at the pass in August. Am I correct in stating that?
Call: That’s exactly right. While the caucus votes we’ve held in previous elections in 2008 and 2012 were always straw polls, they didn’t bind or allocate the delegations. They at least were a snapshot into where voter sentiment is in the state of Colorado, and the decision by the state Republican Party to cancel that vote taken in connection with the caucus really did cut out any semblance of democracy or the popular will in connection with the delegate election event. It became an entire party insiders game with getting delegates to go to county assemblies in the state convention. While Colorado has over a million registered Republican voters, the only votes that really counted were that of the 3,900 delegates that gathered down in Colorado Springs.
Ingraham: How do you become a delegate in Colorado? Does it tend to be more people who are activists within the Party? Is there a Tea Party element? How does that play out?
Call: So, Colorado has a lot of different elements. Tea Party elements, strong second amendment and pro-life supporters, it’s a very diverse coalition. And, lots of factions are involved in the Party. But, the process to become a delegate, to be able to have your voice heard in the process, is admittedly cumbersome, convoluted, complicated, and not friendly to folks that are political novices or are new at this process. You would have had to show up at your local neighborhood caucuses back in March, March 1st, and sit through two or three hour meetings, get elected from among your neighbors at the local neighborhood precinct caucus to go attend a county assembly. Then, from the county assembly, you had to convince the few hundred or a thousand of delegates at the county assembly to move you on to attend the congressional district, or state convention process. Then, you had to show up at the state convention and, as has been widely reported, you had ten seconds to make your pitch to the 3,900 delegates at the state assembly of why they should elect you to go to Cleveland.
Ingraham: At a time where the Republicans are so fractured, and it really is for the most part an anti-Establishment mood within the Party, that’s why Rubio went down in flames, that’s why Jeb couldn’t get any traction, that’s why Kasich is still lower in delegate count than Rubio. These outsiders as they’re called are still managing to capture the imagination and the spirit of the people, but if at the end of all this people just have an overall sense that, if you’re a Republican voter and you vote it doesn’t matter that much, how much damage do you think that will do to the Republican brand or reputation going forward?
Call: That is a great observation, and it’s a concern I feel overwhelmingly as well. The very time we should be opening up our doors and being more open and transparent, and welcoming people into our Party, we’ve essentially made the decision to close it off and make it more cumbersome and more difficult. And, to prevent the ability of people to have their voice heard in this process. You’re reinforcing all of the very worst stereotypes about the Party and I, frankly, am very concerned about the way voters are going to feel. In a swing state like Colorado, for example, even if Ted Cruz or Donald Trump ultimately become the nominee for President, while we’ve been able to make our pitch to the 3,900 delegates at the state convention, there’s million registered Republicans that haven’t been talked to and there’s almost a million and a half unaffiliated voters, independent voters, that are key to deciding the contest in the battleground state and we haven’t done any work in a state like Colorado to build the campaign infrastructure to engage them or allow their voices to be heard. So, the message we’re sending to voters broadly the way this process is going is that your vote doesn’t matter and your voice doesn’t count.
I’m voting for Trump anyway. If anything, whether they count my vote or not, at least they will get “my message” to them.
Americans need a ‘Plan B’. We can start by reading the Declaration of Independence. Then establish a plan of action to restore our Freedom and Sovereignty, which would include outlawing the Communist Party.
H.R. 1205 – American Sovereignty Restoration Act Of 2015:
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/hr1205/text
Yes, participate in the fraud. Good plan!
Unbelievable.
The only fraud or delusion that exists is for you to stay home and whine about everyone else from your armchair and do nothing.
Have fun with that.
Yea, because committing fraud and rooting for a controlled opposition puppet accomplishes so much more.
It really doesn’t matter what you have been conned into thinking.
For the moment, this is still a free country.
I may go vote and you may stay home and play with yourself for all I care. Enjoy.
Conned? Your the one participating in a con election with a con candidate and you’re lecturing me about being conned?!!! WTH??? Do I even need to elaborate further on that?
Colorado is turning into the next Mexifonia. The democrats have destroyed this state. I’m still voting trump, both parties can kiss my @ss
Yes, once again, participate in the fraud.
Unbelievable.
Yes. Scream and shout.
Burn off some of your pent up energy.
The election process has ALWAYS been a tool of the Master Class.
The only way to win is to not play their game.
When no one plays their game, the Elite lose their legitimacy.
The beauty about Trump is he exposing just how corrupt these elections are. That’s all i gotta say about that.
I am not voting either and would never vote for Trump nor Cruz nor “the Bern” nor the head psycho female. But I don’t think the Rethuglicans “stealing” the selection from Trump is just about stealing from Trump or simply saying F*** you to the American Trump voters. There is something more sinister I think. The Dems elites of course are doing the same nonsense on Bernie boy for the same reason. These elites KNOW We the People are fed up with their criminal psycho behavior and they also KNOW We the People are hankering to do something about it short of hanging them all by their necks until dead, but they also KNOW we do not know exactly how to go about it, so the psychos will do whatever they have to do to make us all so angry that we will out of desperation and with nothing else to lose foment violence and revolution. They are setting us up for that, which will be the pretext for martial law and complete totalitarianism–which is what they want (sorry if this sounds too much like Hunger Games…).
Now the results won’t quite be the way they want, but they are psychopaths, so thinking about real outcomes is not in their vocabulary if you know what I mean.
The first test of this might be in Cleveland at the Rethug Convention.
Morning Star,
To pretend that our Republic has not been usurped is wanton indulgence and cowardice, the evidence being the one million infringements upon our Bill of Rights and the total dismissing of our authority.
These mother f#@kers are taking our wealth from us at gunpoint and handing it to their cohorts around the world, as they work to re-colonize our nation and make our people extinct.
I have not heard Donald Trump say the Bill of Rights must be obeyed and the government removed from the people’s lives. I have heard him say that the POWER NEEDS TO BE RETURNED TO THE POLICE. I have heard him say, THE FOREIGN STATE OF ISRAEL COMES FIRST. I have heard him say that our gluttonous military, which is under United Nation control and murdering people around the world to take their resources and hand them over to the international corporate elite, must be made strong again. Our military budget exceeds the rest of the world’s combined.
The potential next great white father is offering you a shiny glass bead called border security, which one man could only accomplish as a dictator.
Only we the people can save this country.
By the way, do you believe that the president should be a natural born American national? Because Trump is not, his mother was born in Scotland.
The thought of seeing these foreign mother f#@kers who have poured into our country, thinking they can take it from us, bitch slapped out of here is beyond appealing, but make no mistake, whether Trump is lying or not, bullets are going to have to be exchanged to accomplish the feat. Donald Trump loves f#@king government. He has not the slightest clue as to the meaning of the Bill of Rights and the fact that it applies to the poorest man in this nation as much as to him. He has sworn to make this government bigger and stronger, you goddamn fool, and we will bow to Israel.
This country has been usurped. The system being used to accomplish these fraudulent elections represents a running violation of my people’s Bill of Rights. It is a system being run by international criminals (a corporation in Spain will be counting your vote, LOL). Anyone who participates in this vote is participating in a vote set up by a foreign occupation and is guilty of treason against we the American nationals of united States of the Americas. Our numbers are legion and before this is over, every arrogant, retarded, and cowardly one of you is going to answer for aiding the enemy.
I do not pretend anything. I am not anyone’s type of fool. The country has been usurped, used to accomplish fraudulent elections, and run by international criminals for decades. Catch up and keep up. The fix has been in for a while. At this point in time, ‘voting’ is merely a message, although indirectly so. I often times write in my own name. So there is no need for anyone to panic and get their panties in a pinch.
It’s hypocritical (or schizophrenic), to stomp upon a person’s constitutional right to vote then cling to the Bill of Rights. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Actually, by your standards and assertions — if you or your parents have a birth certificate, a driver’s license, social security number, or have served in the U.S. military to defend the U.S. Constitution and this country, you are in fact guilty of treason. So, thanks a lot for that.
I am in no manner arrogant, retarded, cowardly, or aide to any enemy of my country by exercising my Constitutional right to vote. That type of accusation sounds like what a communist or an Islamic extremist would say.
Your transference of threatening and profane anger toward me is misplaced and truly disappointing. I’m sure that we can all continue live with that disappointment in spite of you.
The condition of this country is because of the decades of neglect by the citizenry to defend that for which it stands, or for what it once stood for. We can defend and restore the U.S. Constitution and our Freedom or allow someone to redefine it then kill us.
Turn on a light, step away from the mirror or spit at it.