Politics Election 2016: April 2016 Archives
John Boehner Revealed His Character At Stanford - The Stanford Review
"Many conservatives would tell you that this is not the first time John Boehner has sold out the cause. I have always defended Boehner from these criticisms, but he has now made it impossible for me to do so. At Stanford, Boehner revealed his character. And it wasn't pretty....
"Besides, Boehner is a conservative. He likely agrees with Cruz on most key questions of policy and principle, from the size of government to federalism to defending life. However, these are evidently secondary concerns for the former Speaker of the House. Boehner puts his own petty personal and procedural differences with Cruz first, and unleashes with the type of vile criticism that he has never directed at Barack Obama, John Kerry, or anyone else....
"Now more than ever, the Republican Party and conservatives need to be united in an all-out effort to save the party and country from Trump. Conservatives from George Will to Charles Krauthammer to Bill Kristol to the whole National Review have stood firm against Trump on principle, but Republican elites are giving in. John Boehner divides us because he personally dislikes Ted Cruz. While the fire rages, Boehner misses the forest for the trees.
"At Stanford, Boehner made it clear that his critics have been right. Trump stands against everything for which Boehner has worked during his 25 years in Washington, but when it matters most, Boehner is unwilling to fight a shifting tide. At Stanford, we saw Boehner uncut, uncensored, and unprincipled."
Conventional Wisdom | The Weekly Standard
"Party conventions are open processes. Delegates to these gatherings are not handpicked by party bosses. They are regular Republicans who participate because they have the time and interest to do so. The Cruz team put in the effort to organize regulars loyal to its candidate; the Trump campaign failed to do so. Consider, for instance, the Colorado convention held earlier this month. Delegates to that convention were chosen at precinct caucuses held on Super Tuesday--and any registered Republican was invited to attend. That the Trump campaign failed to get its supporters to those caucuses is not the fault of the Cruz campaign, the Colorado Republican party, or anybody else except the Trump campaign.
"The Republican party does not belong to its presidential candidates in the way that Trump presumes. In important respects, it still belongs to the party regulars who attend these conventions. Starting in the 1970s, the party organization began sharing authority with voters to select the presidential nominee, but sovereignty was never handed over to the electorate lock, stock, and barrel. The delegates to the national convention, chosen mostly by these state and district conventions, have always retained a role--not only to act when the voters fail to reach a consensus, but to conduct regular party business.
"This is hardly antidemocratic, by the way. Party organizations such as these are a vital, albeit overlooked part of our nation's democratic machinery. The party regulars at the district, state, and national conventions do the quotidian work of holding the party together between elections: They establish its rules, arbitrate disputes, formulate platforms to present to the voters, and so on. It would be impossible to have a party without these sorts of people doing work the average voter doesn't care about.
"And these people are hardly the "establishment" in any meaningful sense of the word. Consider the process in Colorado.... But the process was open to any registered Republican, and more than a thousand people served as delegates at the state convention. There were some big political players involved, naturally, but by and large they were just average people. The same goes for the state conventions in places like Wyoming and North Dakota. These meetings in Cheyenne and Bismarck are in no way beholden to, or the equivalent of, the power players working on K Street."
