I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but lately there’s been a lot of Front Page attention paid to one Donald Trump. Turns out he is the presumptive GOP nominee for President. That status certainly warrants a significant amount of attention be turned his way. But the recent news out of Nevada should give thinking Democrats ample reason to think anew on that word “presumptive”.
Nevada showed us once again that we Americans do not elect our Presidents or our Presidential candidates. We vote for people who in turn elect our Presidents. When it comes to Presidential candidates in a caucus state, we vote for the side that gets to vote for the people who vote for the people who elect the people who actually go to the state convention to name the people who will go to the national convention to vote on who will become our candidate. Or something like that.
The point is, the actual election is rather well-removed from the votes cast by the actual electorate. History shows us that party insiders are often willing to, and do, engage in machinations designed to deliver results they want. Nevada shows us that as of a couple days ago this willingness continues to live on.
In light of this the thinking Democrat might wonder how the GOP will treat their presumptive nominee at their own national convention. The irrefutable truth is, a significant portion of the GOP insiders are aghast at the idea of a Donald Trump candidacy. I will wager doughnuts to dollars that some of these aghast insiders are even now burning the midnight oil trying to invent some procedural route to denying Donald Trump the GOP nomination.
For those who doubt this, please look again to Nevada. The concept is the same. Only the scale of the ambition is different.
I am sure there are some GOP insiders who will try this. I am far from sure they will succeed. But some of them are going to try, because GOP insiders know they can defeat Hillary Clinton if they manage to name the right candidate. Yeah that might not look too democratic. But democracy has never been the driving force in the process anyway.
Right now a lot of presumed chickens are being counted. Among them are Trump will be the GOP nominee and another is Clinton will waltz to victory over the GOP nominee. Myself, all I see yet are eggs.