The Plot Against Trump

by Betsy McCaughey | June 29, 2016 12:02 am

The knives are out to sabotage Donald Trump’s nomination, defying the wishes of the record number of Republican primary voters who chose him.

Betsy_McCaughey[1]

Pols who backed losing candidate Ted Cruz are mounting a sour-grapes campaign to rig the Republican National Convention rules. Their goal is to deny Trump the nomination. Meanwhile, in Virginia, a state where Trump came in first in the primary, a lawsuit filed Friday by an anti-Trump pol claims he and fellow delegates should be free to ignore the voters and follow their own “conscience” when they choose a nominee at the Convention.

Be prepared for more whining and skullduggery ahead, as an embittered minority of Republican insiders tries to derail Trump’s unorthodox candidacy.

This unsavory drama will play out between now and the Convention’s start on July 18. The sour-grapes contingent is quietly trying to persuade convention rule makers to turn the balloting for presidential nominee into a free-for-all, never mind the will of voters back home. The plotters hope to dump Trump and slip in another candidate. It could be distant second place finisher Cruz — who still refuses to endorse Trump — or also-ran John Kasich, not to mention a warmed over Mitt Romney.

Though unlikely to succeed, these wily efforts to subvert Trump are helping Clinton. The plotters are sowing disunity and discontent just when Republicans need to capitalize on the electric enthusiasm that drew an unprecedented number of people to vote in the primaries.

The intrigue isn’t confined to stacking the Convention rules against Trump. The saboteurs have gone to court to stop him. Carroll Correll Jr., a longtime Virginia party regular chosen to be a delegate, is suing to avoid any obligation to vote for Trump in Cleveland. That’s even though he signed a pledge to abide by the results of his state’s primary.

Serving as a delegate is a juicy perk for party insiders and big donors. It’s not the College of Cardinals choosing a pope. Delegates are customarily rubber stamps for the primary voters.

Correll is trying to weasel out, claiming his “conscience” bars him from voting for a man he says is “unfit to serve as president.” Hold on. Why should Correll’s opinion override the decisions of Virginia voters?

Correll is twisting the First Amendment, claiming it protects his “right” to follow his own whim.

Nonsense. If he wants to exercise his conscience, he should just resign as a delegate, stay home and watch Trump accept the nomination on TV. As for Correll’s right to express his own “conscience,” he can yell all he wants at the screen.

Worse than Correll’s lawsuit is the mealy-mouthed “support” for Trump offered by Republican big shots like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and House Speaker Paul Ryan. Don’t they realize their waffling risks handing the presidency to Hillary Clinton on a silver platter?

On Sunday, McConnell refused to say whether Donald Trump is “qualified to be president.” The senator quickly conceded that “our primary voters have made their decision as to who they want to be the nominee.” But he has so little respect for those voters that he’s withholding his own support. That is precisely the arrogance that Trump voters hate.

McConnell’s only praise for Trump is that he’s started using a teleprompter. Few Americans think we need another totally scripted politician. Trump’s spontaneous style knocked his 16 GOP competitors out of the race. Americans are fed up with canned scripts and political correctness.

They want real change. The nation’s economy has been slogging along at under 2 percent growth for nearly a decade. It’s depressing our standard of living and destroying our young people’s dreams of success. Clinton will make it worse, with more regulations, higher taxes and a war on fossil fuels.

Trump offers a radical vision for economic resurgence. Don’t let the insiders snatch this chance away from us.

Betsy McCaughey is chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths and a senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research and author of “Government by Choice: Inventing the United States Constitution.”

Also see,

Dems Destroy Medicare

Endnotes:
  1. [Image]: https://rightwingnews1.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Betsy_McCaughey.jpg

Source URL: https://rightwingnews.com/column-2/the-plot-against-trump/