Now that the Cruz and Kasich campaigns have stopped twitching and have been ever-so-gently heaved into their shallow graves, the possibilities of a contested Republican convention have greatly diminished. Anti-Trump forces, however, haven't given up the ghost.
Angered by Trump’s shifting views on taxes, the minimum wage, national security and how little he discusses social issues, conservatives across the country are studying the party rule book for last-ditch moves they could make when the convention begins in Cleveland.
The seemingly most-discussed ideas revolve around the theory that delegates "bound" to vote for Trump as a result of the Republican primaries and caucuses in the various states—you know, the entire long, torturous slog we've been subjected to these many months—are not in fact required to vote for him after all because the results of all those primaries and caucuses were just, you know, a suggestion.
“Multiple lawyers I know have looked at the rules and say that the delegates can unbind themselves,” [Erick] Erickson said.
Which makes perfect sense, from a Modern Conservative standpoint. Any election in which you don't get what you want is considered illegitimate and therefore ought to be ignored (see: Obama, twice), and any election that does go your way automatically becomes a mandate. This is why a sitting president can be told he has no right to appoint any more Supreme Court justices because the results of the last two presidential elections are just too hazy, and we'll need another before we can go forward.
It also meshes perfectly with the Erick Erickson et al demand that the party not listen to the Republican base, because everybody knows the Republican base is in fact deeply and aggressively stupid, and instead listen to the professional class that "speaks for" the Republican base on TV.
So that's one idea. Another one is for the delegates to, well, hide. Yes, this is a real idea.
Ian Bayne, a radio talk show host from Bloomington, Ill., helped launch a “Save Our Party” website, which calls on delegates to meet “at an undisclosed location” other than the Quicken Loans Arena hosting the convention “until such a time as we can not be held to a vote for any particular candidate.”
Oh sure, that'll work. You get right on that.
All of this suggests that there's still at least some teensy possibility of outright madness at the Republican convention, even as the vast majority of Republican luminaries have begun to grit their teeth and bend knee toward their new lunatic king. It's still not likely, however. The most likely outcome is that the remaining anti-Trump forces will have a minor tantrum or two, it won't even make it onto TV, and then Reince Priebus and the others will crown Trump as if Donald J. Trump is the Republican savior the party has been waiting for all along.
Prove us wrong, fellas!