A new
poll shows that the grassroots overwhelmingly want the Republican nominee to be determined by the primary voting process — not a convention process.
In all, 62 percent of GOP voters say in a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll that the GOP presidential candidate with the most votes should be the party’s nominee — even if no candidate wins a majority of delegates before the convention.
Isn’t the whole point of the primary process to allow Republican voters — not Republican-paid officials like consultant Karl Rove or Republican National Chairman Reince Priebus — to select the nominee for the party?
Either the voters decide, or they don’t. Primary outcomes are not conditional, i.e., you can vote for whomever you want, so long as the GOP party elders approve – oops, that’s not how it works.
Let’s face it. The Republican election for president has, so far, been a mess.
Rather than discussing the issues upon which our lives and futures depend, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz attack each other personally. That’s why Donald Trump has gone off course.
If they keep this up, they will pave the way for a smashing and dangerous Hillary Clinton victory.
At the same time, there’s good news in this mess. If you’re against the Republican Party as we know it — compromising and genuflecting to Obama for the last seven years, then you can take comfort that Trump and Cruz, two of the greatest opponents of that corrupt establishment, emerged victorious.
That’s a good thing.
It’s hard to believe we even need a poll asking voters whether Republican elites or the voters should pick the nominee. How can 38 percent say the Republican elites should?!
That shows just how corrupt the party of Ronald Reagan has become.
The Republican Party is imploding, and it had to. The people running that party, including those in elected office, no longer bother to even pretend to do what the voters put them into office to do: cut government, cut taxes, cut spending and strengthen the military.
We don’t yet know if Trump or Cruz are truly good guys; but the bad guys are destroying what the Republican Party was supposed to be.
Republican elites are in a hopeless position. If they use the convention process to overturn the will of the people to nominate someone other than Trump or Cruz, they will foster an even bigger rebellion.
In fact, it could be the final death blow for the Republican Party: Trump or Cruz go out and form a new party – not a third party, but a true second one — because the Republicans are, in virtually all important respects, now on the side of the Democrats when it comes to the meddling of an arrogant and hopelessly bloated government.
Voters are not infallible. That’s why we have a Constitution specifically designed to protect individual rights over and above the will of any majority. And it’s ideas, not just candidates, that should ultimately matter the most.
If only Trump (or Cruz) could refrain from the endless personal attacks and direct attention toward the real enemy: Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders. Then we might have a meaningful election on our hands.
To have even a glimmer of success, the debate must be about ideas and policies, not personalities. OK, Messrs. Trump and Cruz: I’m still waiting. And so are a lot of people who care about the future of America.
When are you two going to grow up and focus on what really matters?
Michael J. Hurd, Ph.D., LCSW is a psychotherapist and author with a private practice in coastal Delaware. He is the author of “Bad Therapy, Good Therapy (and How to Tell the Difference).” For more of his reports, Go Here Now.