The Trump Campaign Belatedly Realizes How Colorado Picks Its Delegates The headlines on Drudge this morning: SHOCK: Republicans cancel presidential election in CO . . . Voters burn registrations in protest . . . TRUMP: How is it possible people of the state never got to vote? 'This will not be allowed!' 1 MILLION REPUBLICANS SIDELINED . . . PAPER: GOP made big mistake abandoning presidential tally... The Colorado Republican party made the decision to not hold a straw poll back in August, with very little objection at the time from Donald Trump or anyone else outside Colorado. And this is not much of a change from the previous cycles. Colorado had primaries until 2003, when Governor Bill Owens and bipartisan majority in the state legislature eliminated them in presidential contests, contending it was a waste of money and that state parties should pay for them, not taxpayers. The state shifted to a caucus format, and Republicans didn't pay much attention to the change in 2004, when George W. Bush was running with no major primary opposition. Then, as it was described in 2008, "each of the 46 delegates Colorado will send to the Republican National Convention will be unpledged, but the state caucus and straw poll here was viewed as an important indicator of momentum in this diverse state." Again in 2012, Colorado's delegates were not bound to the candidate who won the caucuses. In other words, the caucus didn't actually mean anything to the delegates; they were free to honor the results or ignore them. This time around, the Republican National Committee told the state parties they could no longer have "beauty pageant" competitions -- i.e., purely symbolic contests that are not actually tied to the results. That's what the "straw poll" represented, so the Colorado GOP canceled it. I can hear the objection from the Trump crowd now -- "But what about the delegate fights in all of other these states? Aren't they ignoring the contest results?" But in every other state, the delegates are bound to vote for a candidate for a certain number of ballots, under party rules. You have some likely Cruz supporters going as pledged Trump delegates, who are absolutely, intractably required to vote for Trump on the first or first two ballots (depending on state party rules). If Trump wins the nomination on the first or second ballot, their unexpressed preference for Cruz doesn't matter; they never get a chance to cast a vote for Cruz. On March 1, Colorado Republicans gathered at 2,917 precinct caucuses to select delegates to the county assemblies and district conventions. If you're a Coloradan with a view on the Republican primary, this is when you got to vote. At the county assemblies, those delegates elect delegates to the congressional-district and state Conventions. (Colorado Republicans pick three delegates and three alternates from each of the seven congressional districts, and then another 13 to represent statewide.) Once again, this is all laid out in the party rules. This isn't hidden somewhere. It's not written in code. Trump asks, "How is it possible that the people of the great State of Colorado never got to vote in the Republican Primary? Great anger -- totally unfair!" It's very possible, because another nine states and the District of Columbia have people who "never get to vote in the Republican Primary" because they have a caucus, and another four territories have caucuses or state conventions. Trump's contention is that only primaries are fair. One might think he had never paid much attention to a presidential primary before. (We do know he hasn't voted in the past six presidential primaries, and he mentioned this morning that two of his children missed the deadline to register to vote in the New York primary.) It's been easy to scoff at this description of Trump's meeting with RNC Chairman Reince Priebus . . . When Mr. Priebus explained that each campaign needed to be prepared to fight for delegates at each state's convention, Mr. Trump turned to his aides and suggested that they had not been doing what they needed to do, the people briefed on the meeting said. But the evidence is mounting that yes, indeed, Trump really is being poorly served by his staff, as his campaign seems to get blindsided by existing rules week after week: Trump's campaign didn't put a visible paid staffer on the ground in Colorado until last week, when it hired Patrick Davis, a Colorado Springs political consultant, to organize national delegate candidates at the 7th Congressional District convention in Arvada. By then, Cruz had won the first six delegates. Even then, the energy behind Trump's campaign didn't materialize in support. He managed to win only seven alternate delegates. The Trump campaign's list of preferred national delegates distributed at the state convention on Saturday was riddled with errors and misspellings that only further hurt its chances. The Trump campaign responded to the setback by comparing their opponents to Nazis. In his first Sunday show interview since taking on an expanded role in Donald Trump's campaign, Paul Manafort was quick to raise questions about the tactics Senator Ted Cruz' campaign is using to secure delegates. After being asked whether threatening delegates is fair game in the hunt for the 1,237 required to secure the republican nomination, Manafort responded, "It's not my style, and it's not Donald Trump's style. … But it is Ted Cruz's style." He then called the Cruz campaign's methods "Gestapo tactics, scorched-earth tactics." Manafort did not back up his accusations with specific incidents but said, "We're going to be filing several protests because reality is, you know, they are not playing by the rules." Note the irony: Manafort's last major client, ousted Ukranian president Viktor Yanukovich, was a pro-Russian strongman who was driven from power in a popular uprising after his regime shot protesters, bloodshed he said he later regretted. Stone: I'm Only Disclosing Hotel Room Numbers to Facilitate a Dialogue! For what it's worth, Trump's longtime friend and aide, Roger Stone, insists he never threatened violence to GOP convention delegates if they chose a nominee other than Trump. Here's his argument: CNN used a truncated video clip of my interview with Stephan Molynneux to go to the hotels of delegates, implying I an advocating violence. Nowhere have I advocated violence. Here is what I said about the Stop the Steal March Cleveland, as reported by Breitbart. "We're going to have protests, demonstrations. We will disclose the hotels and the room numbers of those delegates who are directly involved in the steal," Stone stated in a radio interview with Philadelphia's Dom Giordano the same day. "If you're from Pennsylvania, we'll tell you who the culprits are," Stone threatened. "We urge you to visit their hotel and find them. You have a right to discuss this, if you voted in the Pennsylvania primary, for example, and your votes are being disallowed." DISCUSS ! Where is the threat of violence? We the people who VOTED for these delegates have a RIGHT to engage them. The GOP is going to lose MILLIONS of new voter, disillusioned democrats and independents if this nomination is stolen from Donald Trump. Only Trump can win. We have a right to make our case. Join me for the Stop the Steal Rally July 18-21. Stone is right that he never says, "Let's beat these people up." But when you call them "culprits," when you refer to the contested convention scenario as "stealing", when you contend votes are being "disallowed" . . . just how much of a "discussion" do you think is going to happen? If you tell someone, "This delegate has stolen something very important to you, and here's the delegate's hotel room number," just what do you think is going to happen next? ADDENDA: Tony Katz explains to a caller what he stands for. Michael Schulkins unveils "Game of Cards," a look at how the presidential race would have unfolded in an environment like the Kingdom of Westeros. Michael Ginsberg, formerly the Republican Party Chairman in my old congressional district, is now an attorney in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. He just had his first book published, Vietnam Envy and the Emerging Iraq Syndrome: How the Modern Antiwar Protest Movement Prevents the United States from Winning Military Conflicts. He contends the "Vietnam Syndrome" is now replaced with the "Iraq Syndrome" -- a reluctance by policymakers to credibly threaten and, if necessary, use force to protect American interests. He sees it driven by a mix of students and Sixties protestors to pop icons and journalists inclined to oppose any U.S. military actions to recreate the antiwar culture of the Sixties and follow the Vietnam protest template.  | 
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