Anyone

Colorado GOP Convention, Colorado Springs, April 9, 2016

Citizen Pete writes,

"These are our friends and fellow grassroots activists, Tea Party members and long-time Republicans, county chairs and first-time caucus attendees, young and old, very conservative and not-as-conservative, all gathered together to move our country forward, select senate candidates for the June primary election, and to elect delegates to the GOP National Convention, who will help to select our next president.

These are the Patriotic Americans that the Donald Trump Campaign compared to Nazis, using Gestapo tactics. These are the delegates that Donald Trump totally ignored until a week before the convention. This is the crowd who would have loved to hear a Trump speech, even if a majority were supporting his opponent, Senator Ted Cruz. But Donald Trump couldn't be bothered to show up. Instead, after he lost all of the Colorado delegates to Senator Ted Cruz, the Donald directed his staff and supporters to whine, and to make false accusations about a delegate selection process he didn't bother to understand, or choose to participate in."

This week, Trump was back in New York, among the people who share his values, complaining that the whole Colorado delegate selection process was a "totally corrupt rigged system" designed by the GOP establishment to prevent him from attaining his Trump-Given Right to be nominated for president.

Well, I've got some news for you Mr. Trump, and for all of the media and pundits who bought into your bogus narrative. It's going to backfire, big time.

You see, Colorado politics and the process of selecting candidates and delegates is all about showing up, starting at your local precinct caucus (held on March 1). It's a truly grassroots process, and it's been done that way for over 100 years.

Anyone, and I mean ANYONE, who is registered Republican, can show up and be part of a local precinct caucus. A precinct is the smallest political delineation for elections and holding party meetings. In an urban area it might encompass several blocks, basically your larger neighborhood. In rural Colorado it might include all or a large portion of a county. Typically, a precinct contains a few to several hundred GOP voters.

Anyone, and I mean ANYONE, can be selected by their fellow caucus attendees to be a delegate to their county and congressional district assemblies, and yes, even to the state GOP convention. Anyone. It was estimated that about 40 percent of the over 4,000 delegates and alternates at this year's convention were new to the process. Some of them drove six or more hours to get there, and stayed in motels at their own expense.

And here is the little-known fact that all the pundits and press have failed to report:

Anyone, and I mean ANYONE, who is a registered Republican, could have filled out a form and been listed as a delegate to the National GOP Convention. Anyone. You didn't even have to attend your caucus - the form was posted online at your state or county GOP website. On that form you had to designate either that you were supporting a particular candidate or were running as un-pledged. Most listed themselves as un-pledged.

That is precisely why there were over 600 national delegate candidates listed at the state convention, and about an equal number of candidates combined at the seven congressional district assemblies. Out of that thousand or so candidates, only 13 would be selected at the state convention, and 21 at the congressional assemblies (3 each), plus an equal number of alternate delegates, to go to the national convention in Cleveland. Add the Colorado GOP Chairman, and one man and one woman delegate to the RNC, and you have the total of 37 delegates frequently mentioned in the press.

Note that, only one, let me repeat that, ONLY ONE out of that 37 is part of the GOP establishment, the Colorado GOP Chairman, Steve House. All of the others were elected in a process that began with electing delegates to the state convention and the congressional district meetings at the local precinct caucuses. Delegates were also selected to attend county assemblies where candidates for local office, and the state legislature are selected through votes.

That is grassroots, baby. No other way to describe it.

Unless you are the Donald. Then you describe it as the party establishment disenfranchising potential Trump delegates. Give me a break.

If any potential Trump voters were "disenfranchised", it was because of the failure of the Trump Team to reach out and educate their supporters about the process of electing delegates. No one told them to show up. Or maybe there just aren't that many Trump supporters in Colorado. Out of 22 people at my own caucus, not one supported Trump.

Read more here.