Republican Party Bosses Are Not Giving Up On Their Dream Of Crowning Paul Ryan At Their July Convention

The fix is in

When the polling organizations do their head-to-head match-ups between Bernie and Trumpf, Cruz and Rubio and between Hillary and Trumpf, Cruz and Rubio, they ought to start including Paul Ryan. I'm not kidding... the conservative establishment is gung-ho on keeping Trumpf (and Cruz) from winning the nomination and if Rubio continues to be too implausible, Ryan will be the readymade "compromise" candidate "everyone" can be happy with. (Remember, no guns allowed at the Quicken Loans Arena GOP convention in Cleveland, even though Ohio is a concealed carry state and even though Republican insist everyone is safer when everyone is armed.) Morning Consult has even started including Michael Bloomberg. Hillary lost to Trumpf with Bloomberg in the race-- 37% Herr Trumpf, 36% Hillary and 13% Bloomberg-- while Bernie won the same match-up-- Bernie 35%, Trumpf 34%, Bloomberg 12%. Bernie also beats Rubio (36-29%) and Cruz (36-28%) with Bloomberg in the race.

In New Hampshire general election polling, PPP matched Hillary and Bernie against Jeb (Hillary beats Jeb 43-41% and Bernie beats him 47-38%), against Dr. Ben (Hillary beats him 45-43% and Bernie beats him 46-41%), against Cruz (Hillary beats him 47-39% and Bernie beats him 48-38%), against Fiorina (Hillary beats her 45-44% and Bernie beats her 48-40%), against Rubio (Hillary beats him 44-43% and Bernie beats him 45-41%) and, of course, against Herr Trumpf ((Hillary beats Herr 47-41% and Bernie crushes him like a cockroach, 49-40%). But no Paul Ryan, far more likely to be the nominee than Dr. Ben or Fiorina ever were.

The pollsters don't have to take my word for it that the establishment bosses are plotting a deadlock/brokered convention. Even Politico is talking about it openly... which means it'll be on TV news within a week. Yesterday Ben Schreckinger reported that "[m]ysterious outside groups are asking state parties for personal data on potential delegates, Republican campaigns are drawing up plans to send loyal representatives to obscure local conventions, and party officials are dusting off rule books to brush up on a process that hasn’t mattered for decades. As Donald Trump and Ted Cruz divide up the first primaries and center-right Republicans tear one another apart in a race to be the mainstream alternative, Republicans are waging a shadow primary for control of delegates in anticipation of what one senior party official called 'the white whale of politics': a contested national convention. The endgame for the most sophisticated campaigns is an inconclusive first ballot leading to a free-for-all power struggle on the floor in Cleveland."

As we've been writing for months, the party bosses and the GOP lobbyists and donor class are desperate to prevent Herr Trumpf from walking into the convention with 51% of the delegates for a first-ballot victory. They feel if they can prevent that, they can steal the election from him and steer it to Ryan.

“This is going to be a convention like I’ve never seen in my lifetime,” said veteran operative Barry Bennett, who managed Ben Carson’s campaign until December and is now advising Donald Trump. “It’s going to be contentious from Day One.”

...Each state party has its own rules governing delegate selection, a process so steeped in nuance and legal ambiguity that there are multiple blogs dedicated to wading through it all.

In some states, campaigns select slates of their own delegates, making it relatively easy to send loyalists to Cleveland.

In many others, delegates to Cleveland will be selected at a series of conventions held at the congressional district and state levels. Candidates who are able to get supporters to show up at those conventions and elect loyal delegates would be rewarded in a multi-ballot Republican convention-- even if those delegates are bound to vote for someone else in the first round.

“Just because you get x number of delegates, it doesn’t mean that it’s your people unless you go to these conventions and get people to run,” said Marco Rubio’s deputy campaign manager, Rich Beeson. “You want to make sure that they’re with you on subsequent ballots.”

Rubio, who openly contemplated the possibility of a contested convention in an AP interview last week, is not the only candidate whose campaign is preparing to contest the shadow primary.

One Southern state party chairman said that the calls from campaigns seeking data-- such as contact information on eligible delegates and the names of people who have served as delegates in past years-- began in late 2015. The chairman said calls have also come from third-party vendors who declined to identify which campaigns are their clients. “There’s a bit of skuldugerry. ... I suspect some super PACs are behind some of this.”

...As a true political outsider, Trump, despite his history of business deal-making, would likely find himself at a disadvantage after the first ballot in Cleveland, even if he enters with more delegates than any single rival.

“Donald Trump would get smoked at an open convention,” said the Southern state party chairman, who said he had seen little evidence that Trump is courting the 150 national committee members and state chairs who will serve as automatic delegates to Cleveland and unofficial leaders of their state delegations if the convention turns into a floor fight. “If they were smart, Donald Trump would call every state chair and strike up a friendship.”

A person intimately involved with Trump’s political operation confirmed that the businessman’s campaign is not courting RNC members and lamented that omission as a mistake. “Somebody’s got to be talking to these pricks and at least taking them off the accelerator and making sure they’re not working against you,” the person said.

...One former RNC chairman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, suggested another soft power that the national party could assert over the outcome. The RNC’s Committee on Arrangements controls the logistics of conventions, including the allocation of staging space for campaigns’ whipping operations. In the heat of a floor fight, such details could become meaningful.

But another former chairman, Michael Steele, warned that any attempt by party insiders to nudge the nomination to a favored candidate would be disastrous. “If they want to monkey around with this process and try to fix it, they’re asking for all hell to break loose,” he said.

“Any inkling that state party officials or national party officials are colluding and conspiring to prevent a particular individual from getting the nomination,” he said, “will basically create Armageddon with the base.”