http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2016/03/29/scott_walker_endorses_ted_cruz_and_what_it_ll_mean_if_nobody_walks_into_the_convention_with_1_237_delegatesScott Walker Endorses Ted Cruz, and What It'll Mean If Nobody Walks into the Convention with 1,237 Delegates
March 29, 2016
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RUSH: Political news today. Scott Walker, the very brave and very courageous governor of Wisconsin, has endorsed Ted Cruz today.
WALKER: It's time that we elect a strong new leader, and I've chosen to endorse Ted Cruz to be the next president of the United States for three simple reasons. One, I just fundamentally believe that he is a constitutional conservative. Ted Cruz is in the best position, by far, to both win the nomination of the Republican Party, and to then go on and defeat Hillary Clinton in the fall this year. And that's the key, is we want people who are principled, common-sense conservatives who are people who do what they say, who stick to their guns, but also people who can both win the nomination and go on to defeat Hillary Clinton in the fall.
RUSH: So this is a major endorsement. Scott Walker is hugely popular in Wisconsin, and for a reason. You talk about guts. I mean, you know the Scott Walker story. I've been one of the longest and earliest admirers of Scott Walker. Scott Walker, just to remind you, did everything in defending himself and his job, his position, his state, people that voted, he did everything we have ever asked a conservative to do.
The left threw everything they had at him. They threw all the uncivility they can marshal. They were mean. They were ill-mannered. I'm serious. And, yes, I'm goosing Brooks here because this is exactly what Brooks needs to hear. The left is who he needs to be arguing with. The left is who needs to be straightened out when it comes to manners and civility and being respectful to people. Look what they did to Scott Walker. Look what they tried to do, not just destroy him in an election. They tried to ruin his career, destroy his career, upset his family.
They did everything they could to totally destroy the man in three different elections. A couple of recalls and the standard gubernatorial election. And Scott Walker withstood all of it in a huge blue state. Madison, Wisconsin, is one of the Midwestern mechanic as of progressivism. University of Wisconsin is there. But the whole state, on balance, hugely radical left, and Scott Walker not only got elected, he instituted his reform policies and he created a budget surplus, and he cut taxes, and he deemphasized the power of unions. He was able to strip them. It was classic.
He was exactly the kind of Republican that Republican voters have been clamoring for. He was a fighter. He took no guff from them whatsoever. He put his head down and he just kept charging. He was unintimidated, despite every effort they made to frighten him, to scare him, to intimate him out of politics. And he hung in there. I remember extolling his virtues for the longest time. He ran for president and he had the early lead, you know, before Trump got in and before everything got upset and shaken up very tremendously. Scott Walker came out in one of these early Iowa polls and he was just dwarfing everybody. And then the campaign wore on, and I guess some people thought that his foreign policy, what, people called it lack of preparedness or awareness, knowledge, whatever, something did him in.
But at the outset, he owned it. I mean, he had huge leads, and he's just been I think a role model for other Republicans under the gun, other conservatives under the gun, how not to bow to pressure. I've always had the greatest admiration and respect for him, and still do. And he's thrown in now with Ted Cruz. It makes perfect sense. Here's the second part of the endorsement sound bite, by the way.
CRUZ: Scott Walker is a strong, principled conservative. Governor Walker, with the help of the men and women gathered here today and all across this state won an election, and then another election, and then another election. And when Scott stood up to the union bosses, when Scott saw death threats and attacks and protests and anger and yells, millions of men and women all across the state of Wisconsin stood with Governor Scott Walker. And y'all's heroic stand together inspired millions across the country. It inspired me. It showed that when we, the people, stand up together, we can beat the special interests.
RUSH: Well, there's much more than special interests going on here, but Walker did successfully beat back the unions.
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So we have the Scott Walker endorsement of Ted Cruz. The Wisconsin primary is a week from today. But make no mistake. And I touched on it yesterday. The efforts are underway to game the Republican convention in Cleveland, to deny it to Trump. Now, I know, folks, that it looks like a lot of Republicans, establishment Republicans and others, are now lining up behind Ted Cruz, and some are. But don't doubt me on this. There are people at the upper levels, the highest echelons of the Republican Party who do not want either Donald Trump or Ted Cruz. And when I said yesterday that the party, certain elements, particularly convention rules writers and the people who hold sway over delegates, seating delegates, the delegate rules at a convention, this is much more complicated than many people know.
You never really see it because most nominees are chosen during the primary process. Most conventions are not contested. The last one on the GOP side was '76. People have forgotten what happened there. But if neither candidate wins on the first ballot, then after that it is wide open and the people that run that convention can determine who gets seated as a delegate. Some delegates haven't even been chosen yet. We have these primaries, we hear that Trump won 99 delegates in Florida, 99 delegates, he won Florida, but those delegates may not have been chosen yet.
My point is, the delegates, the actual delegates who are gonna attend the convention. be sitting there on the floor of the convention with their state, with their leader standing up and announcing how they vote during every roll call, those delegates, it's a prime honor to be chosen as a delegate. Some elected officials are automatically delegates. Others are chosen. And how you get to be one is every bit based on connections and who you know and otherwise as anything else in life is. And if the people that run that convention want to make sure that on a second ballot there aren't any delegates in there for Donald Trump, they can try to set that up. If they want to make sure there aren't any delegates seated that are gonna vote for Ted Cruz, they can try to set that up. They run this show.
So while it looks like some Republicans are reluctantly or eagerly, depending, getting behind Cruz, my thought is that at the Romney level of this convention, whatever the upper echelon is and whoever you associate being there, they are going to try -- they may not succeed, but they're going to try to implement the following: 1,237 delegates needed to win the nomination in the primary process. If no candidate gets to 1,237, if Trump doesn't get there, even if he's just 50 short, if Cruz doesn't get there, there will be an attempt -- I don't know whether it'll succeed -- there will be an attempt to establish or write a rule or enforce a premise that neither candidate is thus qualified to be the nominee, because since neither candidate got the minimum number required in the primaries, this is the same as being rejected by the people.
They're going to try to set up a process whereby they can say neither Trump nor Cruz gets the nomination because they were both rejected by Republican primary voters. Republican primary voters didn't want either one 'cause neither one got to 1,237, which throws the whole truth open. Despite these endorsements for Cruz. The Cruz people, Trump people, had better be on the ball here for everything about the rules at the convention, the rules they write before the convention starts, and how these delegates are chosen and who they are, and under what rules of order those delegates can vote.
This is for all the marbles here. This is for who is going to own the Republican Party, who is going to be the Republican Party, and what it's gonna be. And that's why you got people saying, "I'll vote Hillary before I lose this party and my place in it."
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RUSH: I want to grab a phone call before the hour ends. Chuck in Milwaukee. Great to have you on the program. You're first today.
CALLER: Yeah. Great to talk to you, Rush. Okay. I had issue with you about talking about Scott Walker.
RUSH: Scott Walker? Right on.
CALLER: Okay. Last week Scott Walker made a statement saying that he didn't think none of the three candidates would be the nominee for the presidency, and now he's flip-flopping, supporting Cruz.
originalRUSH: Wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold on. Hold it. Wait a minute, Chuck. I didn't hear that. And I hear everything. I'm not disputing you. I mean, it's getting to the point even I... It's tough for me to hear everything. Scott Walker said that he didn't think either Trump or Cruz or Kasich would be the nominee?
CALLER: Yeah. It was even on Breitbart last week.
RUSH: Oh, well, if it was on Breitbart. But what exactly did he say?
CALLER: He just says that he didn't think that none of these three nominees would be the nominee for the Republicans.
RUSH: But did he say they're no good, none of them are gonna win it, they're not qualified? Why?
CALLER: No, because of the open convention and none of them will be able to get it. It will be someone else.
RUSH: Okay. Look, I'm flying blind here. We need to find out what he said, because I'm not able to comment. It sounds like what you're saying is Scott Walker predicted an open convention and because of that, none of these three guys are gonna get it and then today endorses Cruz, and you think that's a flip-flop. We'll look into this. Chuck, I appreciate the call. I really do. I gotta take a break now, because I'm out of time.
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RUSH: All right. It was as I thought. Scott Walker said that if it goes to a contested convention, that none of these three will be chosen. I think he happens to be right in terms of expressing the desires of GOP leadership. But that doesn't mean he can't endorse Cruz. I don't see a flip-flop here. They're two different things, if you ask me.
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RUSH: Yeah, it is exactly as my instincts suggested. Scott Walker just happened to say -- he was talking to reporters last Thursday, in fact -- and all he said was, quote, "I think if it's an open convention, it's very likely it will be somebody who's not currently running. I mean, who knows. The one thing I qualify, like the qualifications you see on those ads for car dealerships, I think any of us who comment on this election have to qualify that almost every prediction has been off so it's hard to predict anything."
Look, Scott Walker, he's closer to this than I am. And he obviously knows what's going on. If neither of these -- throw Kasich in there 'cause he's still running -- if neither of these three -- you know, that really is such a joke. But he's there, so... If neither of these three get 1,237 delegates, I'm telling you, Walker, his instincts are right on the money. The party wants to choose somebody else. Folks, there's no mystery about this. Don't be fooled by these endorsements for Cruz. I mean, some of them are legit, but look at Lindsey Grahamnesty, who I like, by the way. You know, he's okay as a human being, he's not a reprobate. I tell him when I think he's off the rail politically and so forth.
He said when he endorsed Cruz that he think's Kasich the best guy. During his endorsement of Cruz. I mean, all these guys are qualifying their endorsements of Cruz. Some aren't, like Scott Walker, some are full-fledged endorsements. But I'm here to tell you that the grand pooh-bahs of the GOP don't want either of these two people, Trump or Cruz. You know that. You don't even need me to tell you that. They're both considered to be outsiders. Interestingly, they really don't like Cruz much more than they don't like Trump. They think Cruz is big hypocrite. You know what they think of Cruz? I'll tell you what they think.
They think that Cruz is bitter. Cruz started out with George W. Bush, his wife started out with George W. Bush, and they think he was in the establishment. They think he was trying to climb the ladder of the establishment. It's what they think. They think Cruz was in it, that he had a career decision to rise as high as he could in the Republican Party and he gave it a shot and because nobody liked him -- I'm just telling you what -- this is the scuttlebutt out there among the people in the upper echelons of the party. And because nobody liked Cruz, he didn't go anywhere, and so he had to change course and decided to buck the establishment, and the establishment guys know it, think he's a hypocrite, and then they don't like him to boot anyway. So those are the reasons they're opposed to Cruz.
There are more reasons, too, such as Cruz is conservative, and they don't want any part of conservatism actually dominating the Republican Party. Which is the strangest thing. You know, they wanted to de-Reaganize this party. And they did, and they don't like the results. Isn't it interesting? That's really what they're upset about. They tried to deemphasize conservatism, get conservatism out of the party in terms of it being a dominating factor, and they don't like the results. They're striking out, trying to blame all kinds of people except themselves. They are the reasons why they find themselves in this unenviable position of perennial loser on the national level.
And Trump they just don't like because they don't think they can control Trump. They think they might be able to make deals with him, but Trump's such an outsider, Trump's made a mockery of their whole business, and they just can't let somebody win doing that. They can't let some outsider, who, in their minds, doesn't even know what he's doing, come in and actually take control of their apparatus and triumph? No, no, no, no, no, no, no way, not gonna happen. We're not gonna let anybody from outside our organization come in here and upset the applecart this way.
The point is, Walker's right. If nobody gets 1,237, the grand pooh-bahs are gonna use that as a pretext of choosing somebody else. But that doesn't mean that Walker can't endorse Cruz. He's not being hypocritical there. He's not flip-flopping. He's free to endorse whoever he wants, and he has endorsed Cruz. I would have been shocked if he would have endorsed Trump because Trump is not party. That's kind of what was surprising about Christie endorsing Trump. Trump is not party. And the party people, the party guys stick together.
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