1237 in Cleveland

When the GOP delegates convene in Cleveland in July they will hold a vote to nominate someone to be the Republican standard bearer in the general election. 

On that first vote the delegates will be bound to voting for the candidate they were sent to represent. As we are all aware, in order to win a candidate needs to get 1237 delegates to vote for him. 

If no candidate gets 1237 votes then candidates are "unbound", and can vote as they see fit. 

Ok, it is not exactly that simple. For example, we are all aware of "Rule 40", which says you must have won a majority in 8 states for your name to be placed in nomination. And the rules committee can make changes once they convene. But you still have to get 1237 delegates to become the nominee. 

It makes sense to have some sort of threshold so that the convention does not have to spent time considering Jim Gilmore and Lindsey Graham, but I am not sure what that threshold should be. What I am sure of is that Donald Trump and Ted Cruz will make the cut. 

If you are a delegate for Rand Paul or Mike Huckabee you are not going to vote for your candidate after the first round. You will be free to choose between the options available at the convention. 

With due respect to Marco Rubio and John Kasich, those options are likely to be Trump and Cruz. I don't know which way the delegates will break, but I suspect they will favor Cruz. 

Either way, there is nothing "unfair" about a contested convention. This is how the process works. As the delegates continue voting they will eventually arrive at a nominee. 

The candidate with a plurality of delegates going into the convention may not win the nomination, and that is ok. It takes 1237 delegates to win, not just being the person with "the most" coming into the convention. 

And if the second place guy makes a deal with the third place guy to be vice-president in exchange for an endorsement I see nothing "unfair" about that. 

Political parties are nothing but a coalition of factions. We have the evangelicals and libertarians and moderates and establishment Republicans, all trying to stay under a "big tent".  But each faction is negotiating for a spot at the table. Each wants their views represented. It is a game of give-and take. It is all about making deals. 

One would think a big advantage would go to the candidate most skilled at deal-making. But working with the other factions is something that begins on the campaign trail. You cannot go out of your way to alienate and insult other parts of the party and expect to bring them to your side at the convention. 

The reason this negotiation and deal making is so important is that it is a skill that a leader needs in order to unite and lead the party AFTER the convention. And I am not just talking about the general election. You have to bring people together in order to GOVERN effectively. 

These are not business deals. This is about bringing together people with different ideologies and concepts about what government is and what it should and should not do. For that you need to be able to express a coherent and unifying PHILOSOPHY. That is what Reagan did, and it is what we desperately need right now. 

Political infighting is always nasty, but I think it is fair to say this level of animosity within the party is the worst we have seen in a very long time. The schoolyard taunts in the debates and the #NeverTrump phenomenon are good examples. 

I hope we can somehow reform this party into one with a clearly defined philosophy that we can unite under. Republicans used to stand for limited government and fiscal responsibility and individual liberty but we have abandoned those in favor of cults of personality. 

I have no crystal ball, but I am not overly optimistic. If we nominate Trump, the #NeverTrump crowd will not support him. If we do not, the Trump people will likely not support the nominee. 

Even without a crystal ball I can tell you that any scenario where our nominee is someone other than one of the four remaining candidates will be the end of the party. 

Personally, my hope is that we make this a two man race ASAP and that Ted Cruz enters the convention with the most delegates. And then I would pray that Cruz could somehow unite the party after his nomination. 

July should be interesting.