http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2016/03/31/gop_establishment_advances_plans_to_seize_nomination_at_contested_convention_starting_with_wisconsin_primaryGOP Establishment Advances Plans to Seize Nomination at Contested Convention, Starting with Wisconsin Primary
March 31, 2016
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BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, isn't that interesting? Look at that. Right now as we speak, you don't need watch it. I'll tell you everything you need to know about it. Karl Rove is on Fox talking to Gretchen Carlson, explaining the GOP has just launched a website to explain a potential contested convention. You want me to translate that for you?
The GOP has just launched a website to explain to you how it is possible that Jeb Bush could be the nominee. Or how it's possible that Paul Ryan could be the nominee. Or how it's possible that anybody not running in the primary right now could be the nominee.
Now, this is the first I'm hearing of this. I did not know it 'til I just saw the graphic on Fox. So I am kind of guessing here, educated guess. But I think what this is about, because Rove is holding up his little white board right now with the number 1,237 on it, so what I think is gonna happen here, I think basically I'm gonna be right. They're gonna explain to you on this website how, if nobody gets to 1,237, that it's wide open.
They're gonna explain how, "Hey, in a contested convention, if neither of the candidates in the primary process gets to 1,237, essentially those candidates could effectively be considered as losers already. They have been rejected by voters. Since none of them, neither of them, whatever, got to 1,237, we could interpret this has the voters having spoken in a democratic fashion and telling us that they don't want any of them."
Look it. It's not hard to figure out. These are the people, they own this institution, the GOP, they own the convention, and they own their position in the establishment. This little thing that happened with Trump last night, they decided, oh, this is big, this couldn't have been better timed, this Trump and abortion and Chris Matthews. You might think the GOP establishment, "Oh, no, oh, no they're gonna get --" No, they're not looking at it that way at all. They're going, "Right on! Right on!" They think it's gonna disqualify Trump and make it easier to deny him the nomination if he doesn't get to 1,237.
Don't doubt me on this stuff. Again, I'm just educated guessing. Here's another. "Tech CEOs and Top Republicans Plot to Stop Trump in a Secretive Meeting." Well, we know that happened. The New York Times had a story on that meeting. That strategy, that secret strategy to deny Trump actually starts with the Wisconsin primary. It's a 100-day plan. I read about it. I saw it in the New York Times. That's like seeing it on TV.
Speaking of which, from the Wisconsin State Journal: "Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has leaped ahead of Republican front-runner Donald Trump in Wisconsin, while Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has an edge over Democratic leader Hillary Clinton, according to the latest Marquette Law School Poll. Released Wednesday, the poll comes less than a week before Wisconsin’s presidential primary."
The poll had 957 likely voters. Cruz is at 40%; Trump is at 30%. Kasich is at 21%. And Bernie Sanders held a 49 to 45 lead over Hillary, among likely Democrat voters. This poll was conducted March 24th to 28th. Again, 957 likely voters, not registered, but likely. That means people will give it a lot of weight.
"The last Marquette poll in February showed Trump with a double-digit lead in the battle for the GOP nomination, but the landscape has changed immensely since then. That poll was taken before Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson dropped out of the race."
Now, "In the days before the poll was taken, Trump and Cruz engaged in a pitched battle involving the physical appearance of their wives." I'm just reading this to you from the Wisconsin newspaper. "Other polls out in the past week show a tightening race, though unlike the Marquette poll they use automated calls and don’t attempt to call cell phones, according to Marquette poll director Charles Franklin."
The anti-Trump forces are pulling out all the stops. That's not a statement of support or condemnation. I'm just reading the sentence to you. On the Democrat side, of course, it's much closer. Now, how many expected Trump to win Wisconsin? If Trump wins Wisconsin, you could make a mathematical case that he would get to 1,237. But if he doesn't win Wisconsin, it's gonna get harder to get to 1,237, and who knows whether incidents like last night with Chris Matthews are going to dampen support from Trumpists for Trump.
I ran a little market survey. I know some Trumpists, and I asked them today, I said, "Did this thing bother you last night?"
"Nah. Nah. Doesn't matter."
"It doesn't?"
"Nah. Doesn't matter."
"Well, it's not looking good in Wisconsin. I mean, you guys had a double-digit lead in Wisconsin. Now you're down double digits."
"We were never gonna win Wisconsin."
"Yes, you were. You had a double-digit lead in Wisconsin," I told them.
"No, no, no, we're not gonna win Wisconsin."
"Well, how are you gonna get to 1,237, then?"
"Well, you wait to see what we do in New York."
This is a very important outcome in Wisconsin for getting to 1,237, 'cause I'm here to tell you, I don't care who you're for -- if you're for Trump, if you're Kasich, if you're for Cruz -- the establishment is trying to assemble the mechanism here where none of those three end up being the nominee, folks.
So if you're a Cruzer and you are happy today thinking your chances have been reinvigorated because of Trump having stepped in it on abortion last night, you gotta get to 1,237 to stop whatever the establishment's gonna pull at the convention. And, by the way, have you heard this statistic being bandied about? Try this.
See if you've heard this. A bunch of pro-contested convention people are running around pointing out -- we even had this stat I think yesterday or the day before. In the last 10 contested conventions, the nominee only came from the list of candidates in the primaries in three of them. In other words, seven of the last 10 contested conventions chose somebody who had not run.
They're out there using that stat, the pro-contested convention crowd, in order to give them support and to tell everyone, "Hey, it's not unusual what we're plotting here. Hey, it's happened before. Hey, don't sweat it. It wouldn't be anything extraordinary or out of the normal if somebody that didn't run was chosen as the nominee."
The Associated Press has a story here: "Frustrated Republicans grappled with new fears about Donald Trump's impact on their party Wednesday, as the billionaire businessman's campaign rivals targeted his punitive plan for fighting abortion and extraordinary defense of his campaign manager, who police say assaulted a female reporter. Concern rippled through Republican circles nationwide, yet few dared criticize the GOP front-runner directly when pressed, leery of confronting the man who may well lead their election ticket in November."
So this story from the AP is about all of these Republicans out there who are supposedly petrified over what happened to Trump in this abortion fiasco on MSNBC, and they're very, very worried now that their nominee may be forever tainted, but they don't have the guts to say so because they're afraid of what Trump will do it them if they criticize him. And that's not what they're thinking. I'm telling you they're privately gleeful.
They're not worried. 'Cause they don't think Trump's gonna be the nominee. They really don't. I'm telling you right here, the establishment boys -- and I say that generically. The establishment gang, I think, is pretty confident within themselves that Trump's not gonna be the nominee. I think they're telling themselves that nobody's gonna get to 1,237.
Now, I know you probably heard people say, "Well, it doesn't matter, Rush, it's gonna be Trump or Cruz. I mean, they're two top vote getters. It's gotta be Trump or Cruz, even if neither of 'em gets 1,237." No. No, no, no, no. It doesn't have to be Trump or Cruz. Just listen to these contested convention guys talk. They don't include Cruz in any of their plans, and Cruz is the number two the guy. If Trump doesn't get to 1,237 it's tough for Cruz to, although his supporters think that there is a path for him to do it. It would require Kasich maybe exiting.
But the point is when you listen to the contested convention crowd in the Republican Party talk about what would happen, they don't include Cruz in their list of -- and because they don't that's why I am pretty confident in believing that their the intention is to choose somebody that has either already lost and exited the primaries for somebody who never got in 'em, a la Paul Ryan. But if the news is that you're a Republican establishment guy and you really hate Trump, you're just worried as hell that Trump's gonna destroy the party, Trump's this, Trump's that, can't have Trump, Trump's horrible and it looks like Trump's not gonna get there, "Wow okay, that means Cruz." No, they don't want Cruz either. And they don't include Cruz's name in any of these lists of potential nominees if they go the contested route.
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RUSH: By the way, as we speak, Donald Trump is meeting with members of the Republican National Committee, their headquarters in Washington. The agenda not yet known. Trump was scheduled to be in Washington to meet with his foreign policy team, but his appearance over the RNC came as a surprise today. Well, I wonder why.
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RUSH: Here's Dennis in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, as we stick with the phones. Great to have you, Dennis. Welcome.
CALLER: Oh, Rush, I gotta tell you: I've listened to you for so many years, I lost count, and this was the first time that -- I couldn't believe it -- I dialed the number and it rang. I said, "Oh, my gosh! I'm gonna get through and talk to the legend."
RUSH: Well, thank you, sir.
CALLER: I can't believe it. But the last caller you had, Nancy, she pretty much said something that I was gonna say, but a little differently. You know, when Trump answered that question, I... You know how fast Chris Matthews answered. He'll answer with one question and then another question and he just pounds you, you know? I thought that Trump did great. You know why? Because he realized it was a hypothetical question. "What if abortion's were illegal?" Right away, he didn't hesitate. He said, "Well, yeah, then she should be punished." In other words, he didn't say what the punishment should be, but the point was, he said --
RUSH: I know. I know. He was being consistent on the law and order thing that --
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: -- he's established with his position on immigration. I know flashing through his head was, "I've gotta be consistent, gotta be consistent. So if someone breaks a law, I gotta say we're gonna punish 'em otherwise what I say about immigration they're gonna blow up." So I know how this happens. I know exactly what the instantaneous brain firing going on in Trump's skull was. I know exactly what happened in there. What he didn't realize was he was being set up.
CALLER: Oh, yeah, because after a while the question was forgotten. You know, it's like... Well, yeah. I talk to a few people who are Trump supporters and they all felt the same way. "It was a hypothetical. He said it was illegal. What part of 'illegal' don't they understand?" But the point is --
RUSH: No, no. Didn't... Whoa, whoa, whoa. See, this is the point. It got way beyond illegal. It got all of a sudden now we're talking about murder and death and killing, and all the things nobody wants to talk about when they talk about abortion. And that's where Matthews took it.
CALLER: Yeah. Well, I'm a --
RUSH: (imitating Matthews screaming) "It's murder, right? She's gotta be punished, right? You gotta have some punishment, right? Gotta punish, right?" "What? No, I haven't decided..." "How come you haven't decided? It's illegal! You keep saying it's murder, right?"
CALLER: Well, I was gonna tell you that you and I, we're on the same team for almost everything and I... As a matter of fact, I can't remember what, but I just wanted to throw that out. He answered a question really quick considering what the question was, and I think that people underestimate Donald Trump. I really do. I think he's gonna get the nomination, but whether he does or not, I've been impressed with how he does things because he's his own man, and that's what I wanted to say to you. You are, too, and I just can't believe I got through today.
RUSH: Well, you did, sir, and I'm so glad that you did. I thank you profoundly. Very much. Grab sound bite number eight. This is CBS This Morning. John Heilemann has his own show with Mark Halperin on Bloomberg. He's is being interviewed here by Charlie Rose, and Charlie Rose says to Heilemann, "Okay, Trump is already behind by about 10 points in Wisconsin to Ted Cruz. And then this abortion thing happened, this controversy last night, John, with Trump and Matthews. What impact do you think that's gonna have with Trump?"
HEILEMANN: It comes at the end of a bad week for Trump, about as bad a week he's had a long time. If you think about this controversy coming on the heels of the Corey Lewandowski arrest, uh, for battery, coming on the heels of the fight that Trump and Ted Cruz are in where many people thought Trump went over the line in terms of criticizing Ted Cruz's wife in a kind of unpleasant way. It's the most sustained kind of bad set of news cycles that Trump has had in a while. You pointed out that Marquette poll has Trump down 10 to Ted Cruz. That was all before Scott Walker endorsed Ted Cruz. So it looks right now like Donald Trump could be headed for not just defeat, but a pretty definitive or clear defeat at the hands of Ted Cruz in a week.
RUSH: And it's, I think, significant. Wisconsin, within the context of getting to 1,237, it's already iffy. I mean, Trump needs 53%, 55% of the delegates remaining. He was leading up there. I've talked to Trumpists. "He's not gonna win Wisconsin! Cruz was always gonna win Wisconsin." No, he wasn't. A couple of weeks ago Trump was always up double digits in Wisconsin. "Well, it wasn't gonna hold up! It was always gonna be Cruz's state." No, it wasn't always gonna be Cruz's state, and now it is.
I don't know how much weight the Walker endorsement has. It can't hurt, obviously. Anyway, after Heilemann said, "You know what? This a bad week for Trump, maybe the worst week that Trump's ever had!" He said it happily, said it with a lot of glee. Gayle King, The Oprah's BFF, then chimed in with this: "Well, what do you think makes it different this time, John? Because every time he says something controversy his numbers seem to go up. So why won't that happen this time John?" Why not? Why not?
HEILEMANN: It's an interesting unusual situation here in Wisconsin where all the focus is on this state, and this state has the confluence of talk radio... Conservative talk radio here is anti-truck driver. That's unusual. The Republican establishment is firmly anti-Trump. And you've got this huge core of suburban Republican women who seem to not be reacting well to some of the particular nature of these controversies that Trump has gotten into in the last week, and that confluence of things is putting him in a pretty vulnerable situation, to say the least.
RUSH: There's a lot of people looking at this as a surprise. Trump was gonna win Wisconsin. At this point in the campaign, this was this was the dotting of the of the I and the crossing the T. This was the final march where nobody left had a prayer. Cruz needs 80%, Kasich is just there to whatever. So this was... And there might have been some overconfidence. I don't know. There might have been some assumption that they were infallible at the Trump campaign, but Heilemann's right. This has not been a good week, and at some point these things that don't affect Trump -- at some point -- they're going to.
It's the law of averages, Moore's law, you name it. At some point, it is going to matter. And there's another thing that you have to... If you want to look at this honestly, there is not... You know, Cruz... Let's go at it this way. Cruz always said that that if it was just a two-man race -- you get all these other guys of our there just leave it Cruz versus Trump -- that Cruz would win every one. Maybe not New York, but with every one, simply on the basis of numbers, because the anti-Trump vote in every primary has been larger than the pro-Trump vote.
You know, it's been divvied up. Cruz got some, Rubio got some, Jeb got some, Dr. Carson got some. So the Cruz theory has been, "When those guys get out, the majority of people voting for them will vote for me and in every one of these primaries I will dwarf Trump." Some political professionals said, "That's not what's gonna happen. What's gonna happen is that the party, Republican primary voters, are gonna realize that Trump's the nominee and they're gonna coalesce behind him in a show of unity, and everybody's gonna get with the winner.
"The wind is gonna be at their backs, and they're just gonna sail right into the nomination." That's not happening, at least not in Wisconsin. Snerdley, tell me: How many people do you really think ever thought Cruz would be up double digits in Wisconsin at any point? Yesterday, last week, a month ago because there was...? (interruption) It started... (interruption) That's right. That's what the Trump began to lose the double-digit lead in Wisconsin was last week, predating all of this stuff that's happened this week.
largeNobody thought Cruz had a chance in Wisconsin, Wisconsin especially, given the liberal makeup, even though there's a Republican governor there and Paul Ryan is there. But it's establishment. Establishment is not pro-Cruz. I mean, they may be lining up behind him now, but that's not because they want him to get nomination. That's hopefully so he can stop Trump, pure and simple.
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RUSH: Hey, we got a new poll for Wisconsin. It's from Public Policy Polling. It's a left-wing group. They are out of North Carolina, and their poll has Trump and Cruz in a statistical dead heat. The Marquette University Law School poll (which, that's a new one to me) is the one that has Cruz up 10. But Public Policy Polling has 'em at a dead heat, the numbers. Well, depending. PPP has a good track record, depending. Let me read through a paragraph here, one of the numbers: "Cruz 38, Trump 37, John Kasich at 17. " The margin of error, of course, 38-37. Now, in a head-to-head matchup with Trump, if Kasich's out of there -- which isn't gonna happen.
This is just for note of interest here. If it's just Cruz and Trump, Cruz would lead 49% to 41%. "The poll found that 51% of Kasich voters would support Cruz if he left the race; 19% of Kasich voters would move to Trump." So that last part's irrelevant 'cause Kasich isn't going anywhere. Kasich still thinks he's gonna be the nominee or somebody's vice president, or postmaster general. Something. So you have to go with the first result, which is, again: Cruz 38%, Trump 37%. And what is the other poll? There was a poll of... (sigh) Let's see. It was 36-35. That's California. It's Cruz 36-35 or Trump 36-35. Margin of error again.
I think that's a Field Poll in the LA Times.
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RUSH: Yeah. I gotta revise that stat on Kasich and contested conventions. I didn't remember that correctly, and I don't have time to fix it. It's not exactly what I said. I'll fix it tomorrow. It's not that far off. The thrust of the point's still there. It's just the numbers and the statistic don't hold up.
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