Republicans to scrap primaries and caucuses as Trump challengers cry foul

[Billy Jingo]

Republicans to scrap primaries and caucuses as Trump challengers cry foul

The moves, which critics called undemocratic, are the latest illustration of the president's total takeover of the GOP apparatus.


Four states are poised to cancel their 2020 GOP presidential primaries and caucuses, a move that would cut off oxygen to Donald Trump’s long-shot primary challengers.

Republican parties in South Carolina, Nevada, Arizona and Kansas are expected to finalize the cancellations in meetings this weekend, according to three GOP officials who are familiar with the plans.

The moves are the latest illustration of Trump’s takeover of the entire Republican Party apparatus. They underscore the extent to which his allies are determined to snuff out any potential nuisance en route to his renomination — or even to deny Republican critics a platform to embarrass him.

Trump advisers are quick to point out that parties of an incumbent president seeking reelection have a long history of canceling primaries and note it will save state parties money. But the president’s primary opponents, who have struggled to gain traction, are crying foul, calling it part of a broader effort to rig the contest in Trump’s favor.

“Trump and his allies and the Republican National Committee are doing whatever they can do to eliminate primaries in certain states and make it very difficult for primary challengers to get on the ballot in a number of states,” said former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.), who recently launched his primary campaign against the president. “It’s wrong, the RNC should be ashamed of itself, and I think it does show that Trump is afraid of a serious primary challenge because he knows his support is very soft.”

“Primary elections are important, competition within parties is good, and we intend to be on the ballot in every single state no matter what the RNC and Trump allies try to do,” Walsh added. “We also intend to loudly call out this undemocratic bull on a regular basis.”

[Billy Jingo]

A bit overwrought but it is Politico.

[Lady Marva]

Waste of money and time to begin with.

[Newman]

A bit overwrought but it is Politico.

It tickles me, a little like complaining about the other Party's gerrymandering.

You know if the Democrats were as uniformly backing one candidate, they'd be happy as clams to try the same. In fact they did, when they had an incumbent president running for re-election (Clinton and Obama, I'm thinking of).

[Norm dePlume]

It tickles me, a little like complaining about the other Party's gerrymandering.

You know if the Democrats were as uniformly backing one candidate, they'd be happy as clams to try the same. In fact they did, when they had an incumbent president running for re-election (Clinton and Obama, I'm thinking of).

Don't you don't remember how you described the 2016 campaign as Hillary's "coronation"? And yet, there were primaries and caucuses.

And in 2012, look here.

[Norm dePlume]

The shutdowns aren’t without precedent. Some of the states forgoing Republican nomination contests have done so during the reelection bids of previous presidents. Arizona, GOP officials there recalled, did not hold a Democratic presidential primary in 2012, when Barack Obama was seeking a second term, or in 1996, when Bill Clinton was running for reelection. Kansas did not have a Democratic primary in 1996, and Republican officials in the state pointed out that they have long chosen to forgo primaries during a sitting incumbent’s reelection year.

Okay, there were four states that cancelled the Democratic Presidential primary in 2012, but they did not do so preemptively in the year before. They did so after none of the challengers qualified to be on the ballot.

Since only one candidate, President Obama, met the criteria to be listed on the ballot, there will be no primary. President Obama will receive all 73 pledged delegates.

[Newman]

Don't you don't remember how you described the 2016 campaign as Hillary's "coronation"? And yet, there were primaries and caucuses.

I don't remember using the word "coronation" in 2016, though I may have.

Surely I used it often in 2008, because I think a coronation was intended. The DNC even arranged the calendar, front-loading "Super Tuesday," meant to be too expensive for minor candidates, so to give her an early, insurmountable lead.

It backfired, totally. With the help of the Kennedys and Oprah, Obama captured that early lead, and by the time Hillary regained traction it was much too late to overtake him.

In 2016 there was no opposition to Hillary, and a coronation was planned. (Hillary had served penance. In my humble view, appointing her Secretary of State and sending her to rack up a "record number of miles" traveling the world, was the equivalent of sending her to a nunnery for the duration. She figured to become invincible in 2016; Obama figured to keep her out of his hair for the nonce.)

But the strategy was not to cancel the primaries, as it might've been were she an incumbent president, with the power of that bully pulpit and all. The strategy was to maintain a platform for her to stay in the news, to not give the GOP a monopoly of news coverage for that long stretch.

It's my belief that Bernie Sanders was set up in 2016 not to be an opponent of any substance—everyone knew a socialist could never win the general—but to be an excuse to have televised debates. Debating an empty chair wouldn't work. I think the giveaway of Bernie's true role was that moment he declared himself Hillary's wingman, "I think the secretary of state is right, the American people are sick and tired about hearing about your damn emails." Those words were not spoken by a contender who planned to win.

(Where O'Malley came from is anyone's guess, but Black Lives Matter bitch-slapped him back to obscurity in short order.)

The surge of support for wacky Bernie startled and surprised the DNC, and likely went to his head. He'd been an obscure oddity in D.C. for most of his career, but here at last the brass ring was dangling before him, the chance, finally, to realize some of his socialist ambitions. And the thrill of momentum and adoring crowds is addictive. It has proved corrosive to many a good person.

Anyway, the GOP like the DNC is a private association, and they'll take all manner of strategery into consideration, like the optics of declaring Trump the nominee by acclamation, before anyone has had a chance to do some acclaiming.

[Lady Marva]

“Primary elections are important, competition within parties is good, and we intend to be on the ballot in every single state no matter what the RNC and Trump allies try to do,” Walsh added. “We also intend to loudly call out this undemocratic bull on a regular basis.”

Not much caring. Who else is there? This Walsh unheard of?