RUSH: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. John, you’re first. It’s great to have you, and I’m glad you called. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thank you so much for taking my call. Very quickly, my father passed a few years ago, but he turned me on to you. I’ve been listening to you for probably 20 years. It’s a great honor. Thank you so much.
RUSH: Thank you. I appreciate that very, very much.
CALLER: Thank you. I wanted to call, I’m in Pennsylvania as you said, and our primary is tomorrow. Listening to you as long as I have, I know that you don’t endorse candidates in a primary. And Ted Cruz has an ad running in our local market that, to the average listener who doesn’t know you as well as I do, would certainly think that you’ve endorsed him. So I wanted to just give you a call and let you know about that and see if you had any thoughts on it.
RUSH: Well, I’ve heard of this. This happens every campaign. Sometimes multiple candidates will use excerpts of things I have said and incorporate it into their commercials. There is this thing called fair usage. It is an FCC regulation. And it allows the fair use of what has been broadcast publicly of pretty much anything, with a maximum I think it’s — I forgot what — eight seconds, 10 seconds, they can take eight seconds, 10 seconds of what you say without compensating you, without your permission or any of that.
And it’s on that basis that candidates would appropriate my words that could be said to be in their favor and incorporate them into their commercials. I don’t make a big deal about it because there’s nothing really I can do about it. It doesn’t bother me. I mean, if they quote me accurately, put the context in there, that’s fine. You know, I’m not gonna deny I say what I say. I’m very proud of what I say. I’m very proud of what I know. I love hearing myself speak. You would, too, if you were right as often as I am. It’s fun.
So if somebody wants to repeat it and echo that, more power to ’em. But I appreciate the heads up. John’s warning me out there that maybe — I know what he’s trying to do. He says maybe that, you know, my words are being used and I’m not aware of it. No, I’m aware of it. I know when these things happen.
Here’s Dan in Traverse City, Michigan. Dan, you’re next. Great to have you, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Fine, Rush, how you doing?
RUSH: Very well.
CALLER: Okay. Rush I’m another caller trying to — listened to callers last week — tried to get you to see the point of the Trumpists, and then a couple times last week said, “Oh, I think I see the point here,” which you didn’t, and, “Oh, I think I see the point here,” and we all love you, by the way. So I want to note that. So I want to lay out the point that the Trumpists are trying to give to you and why there’s some disappointment.
You normally look at things and you make a judgment about whether things are BS or they’re good. And the Trumpists want you to say, hey, when a state votes, it’s done, the delegates ought to be locked in, and there shouldn’t be a way to go back and try to convince the guys smoking the cigars. That’s BS. We want you to say, hey, this latest thing with Cruz and Kasich, the people are voting, whoever they pick ought to be the winner. And now them trying to manipulate the system this way, is BS, and so we want you to make a call.
RUSH: Wait, wait, let’s not mix. You’re talking to — when you bring what Kasich and Cruz are doing in this, now, you’re mixing that with the delegate things that are happening, and those are —
CALLER: Correct.
RUSH: — two different things. Let’s stick with one thing.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: Let’s stick with the delegate. See, I don’t see it quite the way you guys do because I don’t see anything wrong with what Cruz is doing, because what Cruz is — bear with me on this. I’m just trying to get this right. I’m not trying to rile anybody up. The point is that Ted Cruz is not trying to get anybody pledged to Donald Trump to vote against Donald Trump when they can’t do so, the first ballot. That’s not what this is all about.
This is all about if there are second and third ballots and trying to isolate delegates that may be required to vote for Trump but do not support him. That’s all that’s going on here. Now, it’s always been the process. There’s nothing new this year that has never happened before. It’s just that nobody’s seen it to this degree, nobody’s seen it this deeply, because it’s never mattered like this before. But what specifically do you think I am not seeing or that you specifically want me to condemn and call BS on?
CALLER: We want you to say, folks, when the state votes, and it should be a primary where everyone goes and votes, the delegates are allocated however they’re allocated, and that ought to be the end of the story until the convention. People shouldn’t be able to or even have to go back to the state and go back in the rooms and try to convince people of anything. The delegates should be locked in, period, and then they move to the next state. And so the fact that Trump hasn’t been going back as well, that we’re trying to get you to see, we want you to say, hey —
RUSH: Tell me something. Okay, state has its primary. Florida has its primary. You’re calling from Michigan. Michigan has its primary.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: When are Michigan’s delegates then chosen?
CALLER: After the primary.
RUSH: Where?
CALLER: When you say where, what do you mean?
RUSH: Well, I mean, the primary’s one thing and then they choose the delegates, that’s another different thing. Where do the delegates get named, where are they chosen? Hmm?
CALLER: Well, after the primary, the formula —
RUSH: See, the primary has nothing to do with the actual individual people chosen as delegates. All the primary does is tell those delegates what they have to do on the first ballot or, in the case of Florida, the first three ballots. I have to take a break. I’m sadly out of time.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: You know, I’m wondering if I should try this again or just let it be. Would people be more comfortable stewing in their anger or actually figuring this out? I just got an email from a friend in North Carolina. “I just had the process of delegate selection in North Carolina explained to me, and the Cruz people came in here and they took charge, it’s all legal, but it’s an amazing story of massive knowledge of the rules and coordination by the Cruz campaign.”
Greetings. Welcome back. Rush Limbaugh at 800-282-2882, if you want to be on the program. Email address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com.
What is this? This is a Politico story: “Cruz Crushes Trump in Weekend Delegate Fight.” Hang on now. Folks, stay with me on this. There’s no attempt here being made to irritate anybody. There are explanations for all of this, and nobody’s being cheated. Now, I realize that some of you are never going to believe that, but nobody is being cheated. In other words, the process is not being violated. The rules are not being violated here in any of this delegate selection stuff.
And I will do my best again to try to make this understandable. It may not be satisfactory. “Ted Cruz notched another delegate landslide Saturday, stretching his advantage in a competition that might never occur: the second ballot of a contested Republican National Convention in July. Cruz won at least 65 of the 94 delegates up for grabs Saturday (he may have won more than 65, but KentuckyÂ’s 25 delegates havenÂ’t revealed their leanings).”
I’m just reading from The Politico news story. “The Texas senator has so thoroughly dominated the fight to send loyalists to the national convention that if front-runner Donald Trump fails to clinch the nomination on the first ballot, Cruz is well-positioned to surpass him — and perhaps even snag the nomination for himself.”
Now, I understand how just the possibility of that might make somebody think, “Wait, that’s gotta be cheating.” Because here’s the process. The people vote in a primary, and in our country, the way people vote is the way it ends, is what everybody thinks. People vote, so we have a primary, and Donald Trump wins Florida. And there is no way that Donald Trump should ever lose Florida after that, is what everybody thinks, right? If the people in Florida in the primary gave more votes for Trump than anybody else, then every vote at the convention in Florida ought to be voting for Trump, right? And anything other than that means the system is being gamed.
Florida is not actually a good example here to use because that does happen in Florida. The first three ballots the delegates are required to vote the way the popular vote in the state went. So Trump would win the first three ballots from the Florida delegation. Let’s just pick a state and an arbitrary number of delegates here to deal with, in, once again, trying to explain — ’cause, folks, really, my whole point here to you, I’m really trying to get you to not think that this particular system’s being rigged or you’re being cheated.
You’re not. This is how politics is. It’s how anything where there are votes, boards of directors, anywhere where there are votes that determine outcomes of things, there are sometimes many votes, multiple votes, people change their minds. It’s bloody. I mean, this is big leagues. It’s for all the marbles. But I understand the basics. I understand how it can be easily manipulated to be misunderstood.
So let’s take the state of San Cordoba. Let’s make up our own state, San Cordoba has 100 delegates. Now, just sit with me on this, and San Cordoba has a primary in January. And in that primary let’s say Donald Trump wins San Cordoba and gets, let’s just say all of their delegates, on the first ballot. Donald Trump wins all 100 delegates in San Cordoba. But San Cordoba doesn’t have any delegates yet. The delegates have yet to be selected in San Cordoba. San Cordoba’s delegates might not be chosen until May, or April, or March, whenever San Cordoba has its convention, its party convention.
All that’s known when the San Cordoba convention convenes is that in the first ballot at the upcoming national convention, every delegate has to vote the way the people of the state vote; that means for Donald Trump. But on the second and third ballot, the delegates are free agents and can vote for whomever they wish. Okay, so the San Cordoba primary happened in January. The San Cordoba Republican convention is in April.
Now, there have been a lot of primaries since January; there have been a lot of other elections. And in April, the candidates decide whether or not they’re going to send emissaries to the San Cordoba state convention. In our scenario, Donald Trump doesn’t send anybody. Ted Cruz does. Cruz sends in a bunch of people to participate in the actual selection of delegates, the actual human beings. The primary has not a thing to do with the individuals chosen as delegates. All the primary does is give them instructions on how they must vote on the first ballot.
After that, they are free agents, and those delegates are subject to any number of procedures in terms of being named as a delegate. It is an honor in many people’s experience, to be a delegate. In some people’s experience, it’s a hassle. Some people love it; some people hate it. But San Cordoba’s got 100 of them. And let’s say Ted Cruz decides he’s gonna go in there and he’s gonna try to arrange it so that as many of those 100 delegates from the state of San Cordoba support him.
Kasich can do the same thing. Jeb Bush could have done the same thing. Marco Rubio could have done the same thing. Chris Christie could have done the same thing. Depends on how much money they want to spend; depends on how organized they want to be; depends on how deeply they want to plan for the convention going. It’s all up to the individual desires of each and every candidate to determine how involved he or she’s gonna be in each party’s convention.
Cruz has known for a long time he doesn’t have a prayer of getting to 1,237 on the first ballot. Only Trump does. Cruz knows his only hope is a second or third ballot, the only hope he’s got. For that to happen Donald Trump must not reach 1,237 on the first ballot. Well, there’s nothing Cruz can do about San Cordoba’s 100 delegates. Even if every 100 delegates, if every one of those delegates is a Cruz supporter, they have to vote Trump on the first ballot.
But if there is a second ballot, Cruz’s hard work at securing delegates in San Cordoba could get him the majority of those delegates on a second ballot. And that’s the rub, because you think that that’s not fair, you think that’s not constitutional. Why, the people voted. How come, after the people vote, those delegates’ votes can change? You think once chosen, once voted, the delegate should always have to vote for who won the state. Am I right?
If that’s the case, and nobody ever got to 1,237, in this case, how would we ever get a nominee? If ever state delegation has to vote according to the popular vote of the state, on every ballot, then no ballot’s gonna differ. The first ballot’s gonna be the same as the tenth and nobody’s gonna get to 1,237. Now, this has been standard operating procedure standard at party conventions and other democratic institutions for, you know, I shudder to think if the 2000 presidential race, if the Supreme Court had not stopped that recount and that election had gone to its constitutional end, I shudder to think.
You know who would elected the president in 2000 had the Supreme Court not shut down that recount? The House of Representatives. The House of Representatives would have chosen the president. And guess who owned the House of Representatives in 2000? The Republican Party. Therefore, George W. Bush would have been elected president if they had not stopped the recount and Algore had never won, nothing changed — remember all that hassle with the hanging chads and everything?
If the House of Representatives had chosen the president, can you imagine the revolt that would have taken place? Because here you would have had Algore supposedly winning the popular vote, the Supreme Court would have stopped a recount, the election in Florida, which is where this all turned, was certified, it was made official long before the US Supreme Court told the Florida Supreme Court to stop the recount.
Had it gone to the House choosing the president, can you imagine the outrage from people in this country who would not have had any idea that that’s how it happens and would have thought cheating was what was taking place and that the Republicans were pulling a fast one, when it would have been right there in the Constitution.
There are steps taken in the election of a president anticipating trouble at every phase how you eventually get it done, and the last possible step is the House of Representatives voting. But in the case of San Cordoba here, I know what you all want me to say. You want me to say that the system is BS. You want me to say that the system is rigged when somebody who didn’t win the popular vote can go in there and manipulate delegates to vote for him on subsequent ballots. You don’t think that’s fair. You don’t think that’s right. You think that is subverting the system and subverting the will of the people as expressed in the vote in the primary.
I understand you thinking that, but that’s not the case. There is no requirement — this is, I think, where this breaks down. You have the primary election, and the people vote their preference. That does not mean that every delegate in that state’s convention has to personally support that nominee or that winner. That’s not what the primary vote means. The primary vote does not mean that every delegate must personally support the winner. And I think that’s one of the areas where this is breaking down, where people are misunderstanding what primary elections mean.
The delegates are up for grabs once the state convention begins. Anybody can run for delegate. People can be appointed delegate. Candidates can go in and try to get people supportive of them as delegates, named as delegates. That’s the fight. That’s the process. That has always been the way it happens. There is nothing happening this year that has not happened before in terms of delegate selection, allocation, or what have you.
The will of the people… I can see where you think the will of the people is being subverted because if the people vote in San Cordoba — if a hundred delegates vote for Trump — and then a second ballot, they all don’t vote for Trump, then some game is being played. “It’s not right! People voted. Why don’t the people’s votes count anymore?” They did count. They did count on the first ballot, as written in the state’s charter. And every state’s different. And states have a right to be different. It’s called state sovereignty.
What Cruz is doing here is simply trying to secure support for what he hopes is going to be a second or third ballot. That’s what he’s doing. He’s not monkeying around, nor is anybody else. They’re not changing, they’re not trying to cheat what happens on the first ballot. They’re not — they can’t. There’s no way they can monkey with that. There is no way that anybody can go in and make delegates all of state vote other than they are pledged, other than how they are pledged on the first ballot.
It cannot happen. And that is not what Cruz is doing. Cruz is not going in and talking Trump voters out of it. What Cruz is doing is trying to make sure that there aren’t very many Trump voters in the delegation from San Cordoba so that if there is a second ballot, most of the delegates vote for Cruz. If Trump chooses not to go into San Cordoba and compete for delegates because he doesn’t think he’s gonna need ’em, then that’s a decision that he made, and he’s leaving that field open to Cruz.
There isn’t any cheating, and there isn’t any gaming of the system — and there isn’t any talking Trump voters out of it. That is not what is happening — and even if it were, how in the world is it? But it isn’t. I don’t even want to go there because it’s not what happened. It’s not what happened in Colorado. Ted Cruz did not go in there and wine and dine or threaten or whatever a bunch of people that were gonna vote for Trump and convince them to vote for him. Not in any way, shape, manner, or form. It’s not what happened in any of these states.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, I’ll tell you something else. There’s one little other thing to add here. Let’s say — just pretend here that all of these efforts that Ted Cruz is making to win on a second or third ballot, let’s skip forward and say that it happened, all right? Whew. First ballot, nobody gets 1,237. Go to second ballot, and all of this work that Cruz has done in securing delegates in his favor gives him 1,245 delegates on the second ballot. I don’t think anybody understands the blowback that would happen from the Trumpsters.
If that ever happens, we are gonna see a nuclear explosion like you’ve never seen before. Because if they think what’s happened now is cheating and rigging the game, with Trump leading everything and nobody even close to him throughout the entire primary process — and nobody gets closer than 300 delegates, and then somehow on the first ballot he doesn’t get to 1,237, maybe he gets to 1,150 — and they don’t let him have it, and they go to the second ballot and all this work that Cruz has done produces 1,250 and he wins it on the second ballot?
Holy smokes! The blowback that will happen then, the backlash? That will be the end of the Republican Party. There are results. There is… I mean, there are consequences to all this. I’m not speaking about any of this in a vacuum, folks. All of it has consequences. That…? Whew! I shudder to think. That would end up being one of the most dramatic political conventions ever to be on TV. It might make the Watts and Rodney Riots look like Romper Room when it was all over, if something like that actually happened. But that is all Cruz can do.
That’s the only chance he’s got.
He can’t get to 1,237.
The only chance he’s got is second or third ballots. It’s the only chance Reagan had in 1976. And it’s not because anything’s illegal. Everybody’s taking advantage of the rules. But if that were to happen? I shudder to think the backlash that would happen because there wouldn’t be any amount of… The words would not be there to explain to people what happened. It would just be seen as straight highway robbery right out in broad daylight, and people wouldn’t put up with it. It would be… You wouldn’t want to be near Cleveland if that scenario actually manifested. You wouldn’t want to be in Ohio if that happened.
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RUSH: Okay. Now, just one more time just so you all know that I know where you’re coming from; I know where the breakdown is. In my example of San Cordoba (my made-up state), Trump wins it, okay? And you don’t understand how in the world ever Cruz could win it. He didn’t get the votes. “How could he ever win? The people in San Cordoba voted for Trump, so how can Cruz ever win San Cordoba at a convention?” You think it’s a violation of the vote. “There’s no way. Cruz lost the votes. How does losing votes equal winning a state?”
I understand your reaction to this. “It’s not fair!” I can hear you shouting it, but it’s all about the delegate-selection process. And as I’ve said… If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it awe thousand times. Here is 1,001. Every state on the first ballot must vote the way the popular vote in the state went. That’s why the number of 1,237 is so important, ’cause whoever can get there in the primary process, it’s over before you get to the convention.
If somebody gets 1,237 delegates before the convention, it’s over. But if nobody gets there before the convention, the first ballot is going to show nobody getting 1,237, unless there are 200 unbound delegates of that 1,237. So if somebody can go in there and manipulate whatever they need on the first ballot and maybe not have won a state but get enough delegates from that state on the first ballot… You’re just gonna have to trust me on this. There isn’t any cheating, and nobody’s going in and convincing people pledged to vote for Trump not to vote for him.
That is not — and what’s happening is, I think you’ve got a lot of people in the media spreading all this just to incite people, just to get ’em all fired up and charged up and just spread this narrative that there’s cheating going on, when either they don’t understand it or they want the fireworks. They want charged-up and angry callers calling in, raising hell for the sake of it, to get ratings or what have you. Anyway, back to the phones because we’ve got lots of people want to weigh in on this. Up next is Myra in New York City. Great to have you, Myra. Hi.
CALLER: Hey, Rush. So excited to talk to you.
RUSH: Thank you very much.
CALLER: I have called I-don’t-know-how-many times. I’ve been a long-time listener, and I was actually gonna call you because you just said what I wanted you to say, and what I wanted you to say is that there are… Everybody from Breitbart in the morning to my friend that I’m disappointed in, fellow New Yorker Sean Hannity, they’re inciting people to feel that there’s cheating, where they can easily point like you did to Colorado and the fact that they made a decision that they weren’t gonna become, you know, insignificant or what happened with Santorum. They were all bound to vote for him, and they changed their own rules, and that’s the reality.
I mean, whether you like it or not, I think Cruz’s ground game is second to none and it demonstrates the incredible president he’s gonna be. I’ll vote for Trump if he winds up being the nominee; I’m a New Yorker. But the reality is, you need somebody that really can intellectually pull together the government in a manner that’s constitutionally tilted, and there’s only one guy that can do it — and it’s not about being a Cruz bot. It’s about the fact that he’s demonstrating it. And there is no cheating here. And what my challenge to you is, I really think you can’t let go of this topic. You have to repeat this every day, as boring as it may seem to you.
RUSH: Oh, jeez. Don’t do that to me. That’s Purgatory, to have to explain this each and every day. Because I’m gonna tell you: This is one of those topics that people don’t want to hear. They have their comfort level in what they think about what’s going on, and if I come along and challenge the comfort level they have, they get mad at me — and I’ve been explaining this for months. I was one of the first ones to discuss the entire delegate selection process and how it has nothing to do with the primary, nothing whatsoever to do with the primary president delegates have nothing to do with the vote on primary day, absolutely not a diddly-squat thing, other than how they are required to vote on the first ballot. But who they are, the primary does not determine who the delegates are. The primary, after the primary, nobody knows who the delegates are.
Anyway, Myra, I appreciate very much. Thanks.
Here is Jeff in Summit, New Jersey. You’re next. It’s great to have you with us. Hello.
CALLER: It’s great to be here, Rush. Thank you.
RUSH: You bet.
CALLER: I’ve been listening to you since my brother introduced you to me on a golf trip to South Carolina in 1991, and you have been the gift that keeps on giving ever since.
RUSH: Well, I appreciate that. I really do. Thank you.
CALLER: Listen, on this issue of irate Trump supporters who don’t seem to like this process of Cruz negotiating for delegates on the second and possibly the third round. First of all, the will of the people is not being thwarted here because as far as I can tell, Trump — who gets 37, 38, maybe even 39% of the overall vote so far — is certainly not the will of the majority.
RUSH: Yeah, you can look at… It works both ways. Exactly. Trump got 60% of the vote in New York and 95% of the delegates. What’s fair about that? It works both ways.
CALLER: That’s right.
RUSH: Nobody complains about that. Nor am I.
CALLER: The Trump people don’t complain about it, and certainly you don’t hear Cruz complaining about it because he understands that this is the system. But it’s also not his style to whine and complain the way Trump does. That’s part and parcel of his persona so far. What’s, I think, even more critical here is that this is a deal-making process that Ted Cruz has engaged in, and if Donald Trump is the supreme dealmakers, as he’s told us many, many times, that he can make better deals than anybody else, this process should be right up Trump’s alley, should be right in his wheelhouse. Even if he comes close on the first round and doesn’t get the nomination, he should be out there making his great deals and locking up the delegates for the second round such that Cruz and Kasich could be left in the dust. If he’s such a great dealmaker. But it looks as though Ted Cruz is I much about either deal maker than Donald Trump.
RUSH: Well, that’s… I’m not prepared to concede that. I think Trump just never… I don’t think Trump got into this. Trump was winning this a different way. This was the shotgun approach. Trump was winning this with national media. It was a national swarm. It was national popularity. It was just a giant wave. The Trump phenomenon is and was a wave, and it’s like a tsunami, swallowing everything. And it’s gonna take everything along with it, and it’s so big and so powerful that he’s not going to have to go to these state conventions.
He’s not gonna have to negotiate and get involved with delegate selection because he’s gonna win it long before the convention. I’m sure that was the Trump strategy. I’m sure that’s what the Trump camp intended to happen. It’s not a criticism of them, either. I can understand their thinking on this. I mean, the Trump campaign has to be an amazing thing to be part of. It’s very, very rare the air being breathed in the Trump campaign to have this kind of a national impact to be at the focus of attention in this way. It’s really, really heady stuff, and Trump is blessed with supreme confidence and I think believes that he’s going to win this thing with the power of his personality and the power of his existence.
And I believe that’s how he believes he wins in everything that he does.
He has other people that roll up the sleeves, get down and do the nitty-gritty and stuff. He keeps up with the details on it. If he’s needed in the nitty-gritty, he gets down there and does it, but he’s got a whole staff of people. He does hire the best people that he can hire. I just don’t think he made the effort here. That’s again not a criticism. The reason Cruz did, it’s the only chance he’s had. Cruz, it was very clear. Once Cruz did not sweep the evangelical states, it was very clear Cruz was not gonna get to 1,237. The Cruz strategy blew up on them early. The Cruz strategy actually blew up when Trump got in the race.
When Trump got in the race, that kind of screwed up everybody, including Jeb, but that divided the Republican vote in ways that nobody had planned on it being divided, and so everybody had to make alterations on the fly, in reaction to Trump. Trump was leading and running far away ahead of everybody. There was no reason for Trump to go into these states, start wining and dining delegates. He wasn’t going to have to.
By the way, you Trump people, I understand emotionally how you feel about this. A, your guy is the outsider. B, you don’t look at Cruz as an outsider. To you, Cruz is as much an insider as anybody else is, ’cause he’s in the Senate. He’s an elected Republican. He’s been in the Bush administration; he’s been in Texas government. He’s an insider, no matter what he says. And he’s working with the other insiders and doing all these delegate games, and I can see how you would think that it’s a bunch of insiders conspiring against the outsider, Mr. Trump, to deny him what he has earned.
I know that’s how it appears to you, but that’s not specifically what is happening. I don’t want to repeat myself, but Cruz is simply doing the only thing left to him, to win this, and that’s win delegates on a second or third or even fourth ballot. And the odds that we’re gonna get to a second, third, or fourth ballot, nobody knows. Depends on who you talk to. But there is nobody that knows right now. There’s not a single person that knows what’s actually going to happen here, which is why everybody’s having to plan for whatever contingency or series of contingencies that they can imagine taking place and being ready for them.
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RUSH: Here is Amanda in Atlanta. Great to have you with us. Hi.
CALLER: Hi. Longtime listener, first-time caller.
RUSH: Great to have you with us, Amanda.
CALLER: Okay. The reason why I called was in 2012 I was a state delegate to the Georgia convention, and what a lot of listeners probably don’t realize ’cause they don’t get involved at the local level and then go through to the state level, is that while it’s not necessarily cheating, a lot of underhanded things do go on. We saw firsthand how rules were changed and implemented specifically to reduce the impact of the Ron Paul supporters, and we were at the convention for many, many hours —
RUSH: See, folks, that is an excellent point. A lot of this stuff, like Rule 40(b) that we’ve all talked about this year, rule 40(b) states that a candidate cannot win the nomination unless he wins a majority of delegates in eight states. That’s rule 40(b). That’s from 2012. That rule was written in 2012 to stop Ron Paul from pulling some chicanery with Romney. There are going to be rules written at this year’s convention. There’s a rules committee at every convention. There’s gonna be a platform. There’s gonna be delegate rules, all kinds of rules that will be written that govern this convention.
Now, normally what happens is that, in an average campaign year, the nominee is known before the convention. The nominee wins enough primaries early enough so that the nominee is in charge of all that. The nominee becomes the de facto head of the party, and the nominee gets to determine who heads the committees, what the rules are gonna be, what the platform’s gonna be. The convention ends up being a mirror of the nominee. It’s the way it’s always been. It’s just the way it’s always been. It’s part of the power that accrues to winning. Didn’t mean to use accrues. I’m not talking Ted there. It’s one of the benefits of winning is that you get to run the convention.
Well, who’s gonna do that, if nobody gets to 1,237 before the convention and there’s not gonna be a nominee before the convention, therefore there’s no nominee who gets to run it. Well, it’s the RNC that’s gonna run it. And then after a nominee is chosen, then the real meat and potatoes begins. Then the rule making and delegate selection process changes, party platform, all of that. Hardly any of it is ever, ever seen. It’s all backstage stuff. It’s always been backstage stuff. Trump just happens to be exposing a lot of it in this campaign.