While the media is in a frenzy attempting to explain how U.S. Senator Ted Cruz is mathematically “eliminated” from the presidential race, there’s a big question that’s not being asked.
It’s true that Cruz cannot capture the 1,237 delegates heading into the convention, but that story is older than the transgender bathroom controversy. We’ve known for weeks that it would be a near statistical impossibility for Cruz to win the delegates necessary for first round nomination.
Ben Carson is eliminated also but not a single story about him.
Why?
The problem is that the media is withholding the real story in order to influence the delegates.
The real story is that this is a delegate fight and not a popular election. Delegates, like members of congress, can go and vote in ways that the people who elect them disagree with.
To avoid the real story, a feigned sense of urgency is being spread all over the internet that Cruz somehow doesn’t know that he’s just become as viable as that guy with the boot on his head. It’s a build-up. It’s theatre.
While the “reality show” campaign atmosphere pushes on, not a single media outlet has put forward a question about the most stunningly obvious convention scenario. With all of the speculation from former Donald Trump assistant and fashion editor Roger Stone, who allegedly “worked on” Nixon’s campaign when he was about 12 years old (somewhere around there), it’s hard to comprehend that he didn’t think of this.
What will Trump do when he wins over 1,237 delegates and there are only 800 people on the floor during the first vote?
There are rules that forbid delegates from voting for anyone other than Trump on the first ballot, but what happens if they do?
What if 600 people go to the bathroom, take a stroll in downtown Cleveland, or hide out in their hotel room?
In 2011, Democrats in the state legislature fled the state in order to avoid a vote on a budget bill, so what’s to keep delegates from just not showing up?
There won’t be any U.S. Marshalls hunting them down, local police have no authority, and I doubt anyone’s afraid of the Republican National Committee’s Sergeant-at-Arms (if they have one he’s probably approximately 90 years old).
Not only what will happen, which I’m convinced no one knows, but how will Trump react?
Will he act surprised? Will he stand on the street corner with a megaphone and ask people to take action? Will he have an army of private investigators seeking out delegates who should be on the floor? Will he fly into town in an Iron Man outfit? Will he finally file that first lawsuit?
The problem, though, is that to ask those questions would screw up the timing of the Trump campaign. That question is on page 74 of the script and we haven’t even rehearsed it yet.
The stage is set. The lights are dim. A man in a labor union hat walks in to deliver the news: the delegates are in violation of the law. Which law he’s not really sure, hey he’s just a union guy not an attorney, but it doesn’t matter because thousands – no, millions – of people are now booing.
Trump enters stage left to relieve the worried man and issue his threat.
Want to know what threat? You’ll have to wait three months. Or… someone can just ask the guy.
Image: Donald Trump via photopin (license)