Cruz positions to change the direction of GOP at convention

Politico:
Ted Cruz has given up on running as the Republican Party’s presidential nominee, but he hasn’t given up on running the Republican Party.

When Cruz heads to the Republican National Convention this summer, he’ll bring a list of ideas for changing the way the party governs itself and picks its presidential nominee. He’ll also bring plenty of backup: hundreds of delegates who were handpicked by the Cruz campaign. The delegates were assembled as part of Cruz’s now aborted bid to capture the GOP nomination in Cleveland, but now they’ll be key allies on the rules committees and other panels that will set the party’s ground rules for the next four years.

Cruz is eyeing another presidential run in 2020, but it’s about more than that. Along with setting the rules of the GOP primary, the party will also hash out its official policy platform — and even determine how much power the Republican National Committee has to make new rules of its own.

But Cruz isn’t the only one coming to the convention with an eye to the future. Donald Trump and his allies, fresh off a stunning primary run, have their own ideas about what’s next for the party. As do the parts of the party responsible for the 2013 GOP autopsy, which called for the party to consider immigration reform and take a more inclusive tone in its interaction with women, Latinos and other minorities.

They’re all coming to Cleveland, ready to rehash old fights and pick new ones — all against the backdrop of a party that has been turned on its head by the most unlikely of nominees. Here are the marquee battles.

Closed primaries: This is the tailor-made cause for Cruz: prohibiting Democrats and independents from participating in the Republican presidential nominating contest. It would instantly jolt the presidential nominating process to the right, a dynamic that would boost a conservative insurgent like Cruz.
...
Rewriting the calendar: Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina lead off the vetting of presidential contenders, and, since 2008, Nevada has been the first-in-the-West contest. But after this season, that calendar is getting a second look, and early states face attacks from later-voting ones that are sick of being forced into bystander status.
...
There is more including several other rules changes.

I like the closed primaries and changing the calendar  to reduce the power of the ethanol lobby.

Cruz should have a good shot at some of these changes.  His superior ground game got him several delegates who were pledged to vote for Trump on the first ballot but were free to support Cruz on the rules changes.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t
Read more

Bin Laden's concern about Zarqawi's remains

James Robbins: ... Bin Laden suggests that President Bush should allow Zarqawi’s body to be returned to his family in Jordan, but this is a matter that is up to the Jordanian government, which so far has not shown much interest in facilitating a homecoming. Bin Laden mocks King Abdullah II, calling him a Coalition minion, and asking “w hat scares you about Abu Musab after he’s dead? You know that his funeral, if allowed to happen, would be a huge funeral showing the extent of sympathy with the mujahedin.” A large crowd would definitely turn out, though most people would be on hand to demonstrate their anger and disgust. Last November’s hotel bombings in Amman , masterminded by Zarqawi, are still fresh in people’s memory, and mentioning them to Jordanians has the same visceral impact as memory of the 9/11 attacks does here. Jordan has adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards those who choose to mourn the country’s least favorite son, and four opposition members of parliament who paid con
Read more