abaco:
If that's true, I agree. However, I have heard over and over that the rules have been in place for 100 years, etc. etc. The GOP and the Dems have been Kaput for years, in my view. The Dems have turned into the Socialist Party and the GOP has turned into the Democrat Party. History may well make the election of '16 the comedy of the century, or the great tragedy of the American election system.

Hiltery can't even eat her own lunch!

Ok, thanks. It seems like, while we were never really a democracy, we are steadily getting away from resembling one. Cruz? Hillary will eat his lunch in a campaign. Strange times...

We may not know the exact frequency of those blasts but we do have the "shock wave cannon"!
That aught to do it...

Demon-ocracy has been proven to be MOB rule or rule by the MINORITY.
The minority actually makes out better in a constitutional federal republic.

It started with the Twelfth Amendment - a result of the back-and-forth for President between Adams and Jefferson, but which really ensconced the two-party system we have now.

Yes...the crux of the whole thing comes down to The States choosing candidates that would protect a States rights from the Federal Governments intrusions.

The true origins of the Party system start with the Twelfth Amendment. It did two major things which had repercussions I don't think they really understood at the time:

A. It made the Electoral College voters who select the President beholden to the public rather than the State Executive Branches.
B. It created the two-party system we have today by creating the "ticket system" of President and Vice-President being from the same party, rather than having the Vice President be the second-highest vote getter among the Presidential candidates. (As a corollary, it also made a Presidential Impeachment/Conviction more pointless as power would not change hands politically.)

Fast forward a few more decades and we have the Seventeenth Amendment, where the Senators (another portion of Government who was supposed to represent the States - not the People) moved to popular election and you have the shift of power to mob rule where it has effectively been ever since. You are seeing the last vestiges of the Constitution with our current President, as he has accelerated the shift of power away from the Legislative Branch toward the Executive. We also saw where the President attempted to install judges and such during recess periods - even when the Legislature wasn't in recess - in an attempt to stack the courts in favor of the Executive.


Now regarding Colorado, the Establishment Republicans changed the rules for their Primaries last year in response to Santorum's victory over Romney a few years back. They wanted to make it harder for non-insiders to be able to rally the electors to their sides. What they never imagined was a Republican race where neither of the primary candidates was in insider! But Cruz' campaign spent the time courting the electors because that was how Colorado chose to conduct its primary this year, while Trump ignored the rules and just counted on a popular victory.

If Trump wants to get upset about Colorado, he has only himself to blame at this point. The rules were set before the Primary season kicked off. Are they "fair" rules? Insofar as every State gets to create their own rules, yes. Insofar as the Republican Electors are the ones who select the Republican nominee, yes. The problem is that Trump voters assumed that the Primaries are a popularity contest and they are not! Primaries are all about courting Electors from that particular political party. Some States Party rules designate that the popular vote coincides with the Party's electoral votes. Some States have open primaries meaning that one can vote for any single candidate of any party - much like the General Election. Some States have closed primaries meaning that one can only vote for a candidate from one's registered political party. Some States don't even force the Electors to abide by the popular vote at all (Pennsylvania)!

The point is that no individual State is exactly like any other, and any serious candidate is going to take a look at the rules of that individual State to see about qualification and voting. What should be noted among Trump's supporters is that he's already lost Washington State as well for the same reason: Trump's campaign didn't know the rules.

Trump needs to stop whining about whether or not it's "fair". It's completely fair in that everyone had the chance up front to know the rules and the rules applied to everyone. Trump just doesn't like the rules because they didn't favor him in this race. So he can either whine about it, or fix his campaign. It's unlikely that we will avoid a brokered convention at this point. What Trump needs to do is make sure that when it goes to convention his electoral votes don't change, or he's going to lose out there as well to a much more organized campaign - that of Ted Cruz.

Now there is the outside chance that the Republican Party will attempt to hijack the Convention in order to put in their own person (Kasich has admitted betting on just such a thing). If they do that and pick someone other than Cruz or Trump, we will be watching the implosion of the Republican Party.

The USA was never a Democracy (majority of the people rule) it was a Republic. Not too long after parties formed in Jefferson's Presidency. (That's right. The Republic that Franklin said the founders made... if we could keep it ...was lost just a few decades later) and consolidated power the USA became a Constitutional Monarchy (only one or two voices ruled). Political parties span the 3 branches of government so there is no separation of power. Soon party hacks on the supreme courts broke the Constitution and changed the government to a Socialist one. SO today, to be accurate, the USA is a Socialist Monarchy. Or to be more accurate it is a Federal Socialist Central government Monarchy with neither States nor the people having a voice in the government the people created by consent.

Maybe THAT's what our biblical ancestors were describing! laughing...it fits!

You may have something there! It's not in the water, it's in the AIR!

I don't agree about your assessment about Cruz or some of the other candidates but I do yearn for a non political process.
It should be about the Candidates, America, despite what progressives will say, does not accept any other ideology other than what the Constitution provides. We've been propagandized into thinking America is open to the flavor of the day; not marxism, communism, progressivism, socialism, social justus or any other perversion.

really, the whole election system with the two parties and their primaries, the outrageous campaign costs and contributors, and the electoral
college is just a terrible waste of time. Just let each person vote for a good administrator- not a person who hands out political favors in exchange for "contributions".
Cruz is just another career politician who will do whatever it takes to get into that office and then pay off his contributors with favors that WE have to fund.
What I like about Trump, and what is the source of the hatred for him, is that he is ANTI-establishment. Its time to shake things up as the current system is corrupt and hasnt been working.

Really stupid of Colorado GOP leaders to disenfranchise their rank and file voters. Probably due to THC intoxication.

He didn't say it, without permission his campain manager did...he was eventually fired...

I do agree the the Colorado system is strange and seems underhanded...but aside from the nicest thing they could of done...is it really that bad? Democracy is a bad thing and leads a country into socialism...so does the Colorado changes save us from ourselves or does it perpetuate the paradigm?
You really have to look at this...if trump read the rules, he too would have engaged that system and maybe he would have gotten a few votes...that's the way I see it...just trying to be objective here.

Correct and your welcome.

Another thing trump hasn't read is the Constitution. We are in this mess because we were steered away form it and the kakistocracy didn't obey the rule of law as it is defined specifically for government.

Tell everyone you know to go to hillsdalecollege.com and listen to all the free lectures on the Constitution...it'll bring tears to their eyes.

No matter who is elected - The Political parties control the government. They pick the candidates, and if someone.who isn't a made man of the political mafia sneaks in like Ron Paul or Trump, they use the law, which they control, to disenfranchise them by every little immoral trick in the book. Just saying that Cruz capitalized on election law ignores who makes the law. Corrupt people make corrupt laws. Yes it is unfair but not to the ones who believe the ends justify the means.

Trump isn't stupid. He is completely honest and had trouble winding through the rat maze of corruption. Cruz and the rest of the lying rats already know how to steal the cheese.

The party system was known to be what corrupts a government and should have been banned in the Constitution not just warned against by George Washington and James Madison.

The only way to restore a government of the people not a government of 2 parties OVER the people is this: http://www.TheSocietyProject.org

How many times I have mentioned this source! Has anyone bothered to read through the material there? Is this just a forum to complain and commiserate? what good does that do if it doesn't lead to solutions and action? Do any of you want to be John Galt and do something about the corrupt system? Then read the above and educate others.

The rules for nominating a GOP candidate change every single election cycle. They changed to make more states winner take all if they were caucuses after a certain date, and so the Colorado GOP cancelled the caucus and had a convention. Each delegate chose the candidate they themselves wanted. This happened in AUGUST. It was 7 months ago. The Donald had not seemed like a viable candidate then, and if you read local reporting on the change back in August, it was not even speculated that Trump was the reason. It was supposed to be to get the nomination process over more quickly to avoid the fiasco the Dens went through with Hilary and Obama... Or the bickering amongst the states in the GOP primary about who gets to go first. Remember the drama the last two primary cycles? That is why such rules were changed. And those rules were changes to previous changes and to previous changes, etc.

Of course the GOP is dead. It's its own fault for not having a consistent philosophy. It's self-destructing. The Dems can't be far behind.

you got it right, Carl. . DT hired Manafort to begin
to make up for it. -- j
.

I'm probably one of the few people that in this election cycle, I wouldn't really mind someone else jumping in the ring (like Paul Ryan). Nonetheless I'll back the nominee.

I don't fault Cruz for the strategy. I'm not a fan of Cruz, but it's just good strategy. To be honest, he has better-understood how the game is won than Trump until now. We don't live in a democracy, we are in a Constitutional Republic, we elect delegates/electors/representatives that ultimately vote on our laws or our candidates or our elections. Understanding that there is a strategy to 'who' those delegates are, is a part of winning an American election.

Trump got shellacked, he went and hired better help. He's NEEDED better help for quite a while, as some of his comments seem like he grew up on the dark side of the moon. He really didn't correct himself at potentially using nukes in the Middle East.. Where? Against Syria, 20 miles from our NATO ally Turkey? In Gaza, which is all of 5 miles wide and would wipe out Israel? And the idiocy of going on Chris Matthews in the first place and not think that it would go badly was just that (idiocy). CM worked for Tip O'Neill, he's not going to suddenly embrace the Republican cause.

The latest Trump 'oops' is his kids just realized that as registered independents (or democrats) they can't vote for their dad in New York.

I don't think he's a bad guy, or a bad candidate, but his campaign-on-the-cheap approach is starting to show where the wheels are coming off the wagon. He's not getting the show-prep he should, he's not getting the advisory services from the adults in the room that he should, Congress is not going to let him undo 50 years of US foreign policy because he feels like it, so that smack-down would happen very instantly in the form of impeachment. If he doesn't open up the checkbook and open his mind up to the fact that he's a great land developer, but others are great political advisors, and respect their knowledge and help, he has probably gone as far as he will.

The US system has circuit-breakers in it for these reasons. The primaries are not something subscribed by law, they are a focus group for the political parties. The party can nominate whoever it wants to, he seems to finally be understanding that, but may be too late.

Cruz is not honest. He was sneaky in saying Carson was dropping out in order to get people to switch allegiance to him. He was sneaky in knowing all along and not disavowing dragging Trumps wife into it (and then complaining that Trump responded in kind). He bible thumps and then preaches to us. I dont like him and never did, even before he started IN on Trump. I want to know what the candidates can do to run the country, not how they can trash the other candidates.

My problem with Colorado is with the system really. To hell with the voters- its the party that counts. Well, I am so DONE with all this establishment stuff. Its time to throw the bastards out and get rid of this back room stuff. One man, One vote- who needs delegates and all the back door party stuff in this day and age. The system is corrupt.