Conservatives/Republicans Your God, Charles Koch, Has Spoken, And You Are Getting Paul Ryan

If these primaries are merely a process for a voluntary organization, why do taxpayers foot the bill for the primary elections? We don't pay for the Rotarians to elect their leadership.

The prediction markets are now showing a 75% chance that the Republican convention will be contested and require at least two floor votes. I am sure the Koch brothers are smiling because their little coup is going so well.

Don Diego likes to talk about the rules, but I would advise him to look at rule 40 which requires in order for any candidate to be eligible for the Republican nomination the candidate has to win the majority of the delegates from at least eight states. The only two people that will meet those requirements are Trump and Cruz.

Unless of course if the Republican establishment is ready to declare that rules mean nothing when it comes to their desires.

I think there's a rule that says all the rules are temporary. How many states does Cruz have a majority? What if Trump is the only one with 8 states?

That is an excellent question.

But a separate issue.

One can, f'rinstance, demand that the taxpayers either stop funding Primary Elections or begin funding Rotarian elections.
Or one can demand that the taxpayers fund neither.
Or one can live with things the way they are.

DonDiego has no objection to any of the above positions. In fact he would not object to taxpayers funding the Rotarians and not funding the Primaries.

Because DonDiego has a higher calling:

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds definition. A great person does not have to think consistently from one day to the next."
__from Self Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Actually poor old DonDiego is largely indifferent to the rules.

He does not like talking about the rules.
He is on record above as specifying the rules are the responsibility of the individual Parties. It's up to the members of the individual Parties to make themselves aware of the rules and request changes if they so desire.
[DonDiego could've talked about the nomination rules of the Democrat Party which have similarity to those of the Republican Party in favoring certain nominees. But he doesn't care. In both cases it's a Party Matter.]

DonDiego supposes the overwhelming majority of members of both Major Parties:
__ do not know the rules
__ do not care about the rules
__ will vote by:
**** what their Party leaders suggest/command
**** which candidate they "like"
**** which candidate promises them more
**** what their preferred TV station tells them
**** whether a candidate is a woman/man/homosexual/transgender/other
**** whether a candidate is Black/White/Hispanic/Chinese/Irish/Polish/Italian/other
**** the guy on the first line of the ballot
**** other

And in the privacy of the election booth, it's all good.
[DonDiego can only wish an Irishman would run.]

An Irishman did run, and win.

O’Leary, O’Reilly, O’Hare and O’Hara
There’s no one as Irish as Barack O’Bama
From the ould Blarney stone to the green hills of Tara
There’s no one as Irish as Barack O’Bama

You don’t believe me, I hear you say
But Barack’s as Irish as was JFK
His grandaddy’s daddy came from Moneygall
A small Irish village, well known to you all

Chorus 2:
Toor a loo, toor a loo, toor a loo toor a lama
There’s no one as Irish as Barack O’Bama

He’s as Irish as bacon, and cabbage and stew
He’s Hawaiian, he’s Kenyan, American too
He’s in the White House, he took his chance
Now let’s see Barack do Riverdance

Toor a loo, toor a loo, toor a loo toor a lama
There’s no one as Irish as Barack O’Bama

From Kerry and Cork to old Donegal
Let’s hear it for Barack from old Moneygall
From the lakes of Killarney to old Connemara
There’s no one as Irish as Barack O’Bama

O’Leary, O’Reilly, O’Hare and O’Hara
There’s no one as Irish as Barack O’Bama
From the ould Blarney stone to the green hills of Tara
There’s no one as Irish as Barack O’Bama

Two thousand and eight, the White House is free
They’re cheering in Mayo, and in Skibereen
The Irish in Kenya and in Yokahama
Are cheering for president Barack O’Bama

O’Leary, O’Reilly, O’Hare and O’Hara
There’s no one as Irish as Barack O’Bama
From the ould Blarney stone to the green hills of Tara
There’s no one as Irish as Barack O’Bama

The hockey mom’s gone, and so is McCain
They’re cheering in Texas and Borrisokane
In Moneygall town, the greatest of drama
For our famous president, Barack O’Bama

Toor a loo, toor a loo, toor a loo toor a lama
There’s no one as Irish as Barack O’Bama

The great Stephen Neill a great man of God
He proved that Barack was from the auld sod
They came by bus, they came by car
To celebrate Barack, in Ollie Hayes’ bar

O’Leary, O’Reilly, O’Hare and O’Hara
There’s no one as Irish as Barack O’Bama
From the ould Blarney stone to the green hills of Tara
There’s no one as Irish as Barack O’Bama

Toor a loo, toor a loo, toor a loo toor a lama

Billryan, you've got me wrong. Certainly rules are made to be changed as conditions warrant.....my problem on both sides by the way, is that the rules are likely to changed AFTER the game has been played.

They call this the silly season, and they have never been more correct. Presidential primary elections are rigged right in front of us, and if you are a Liarry fan, you love it. If you are a Socialist fan, maybe not so much. And if you are a Trump fan, well you may have other problems that need attention.

Billryan, I would vote for the mule symbol before I vote for another Democrat. But the Republicans keep making it harder and harder for me to cast a ballot without holding my nose. 300 million people and the best we seem to be able to get is a liar with NO accomplishments on her resume, a Socialist and a businessman with little in the way of social graces. IF and I mean IF it becomes Liarry vs Trump can you imagine how bad this will get? Trump will not avoid the Clinton scandals.....will not avoid the financial windfalls enjoyed by Liarry and she will be forced to respond. This is all not looking good for any of us.

All I want is someone, anyone that I can feel good about voting for....it sure ain't Sanders. It sure ain't Clinton and it sure ain't Trump.

Rules are like bones. Made to be broken.
The rules are laid out ahead of time. X amount of delegates are assigned to party officials, Y amount are up for public vote.

Poor old DonDiego feels lvfritz's pain. The likely choices are indeed a sorry lot.

D. Trump
As a businessman active in real estate, many of his best deals involved significant negotiations with City and State Governments, . . . like getting tax breaks for his pet projects. And he avoided most of the problems with his Atlantic City properties by getting out just in time.
He might actually be a very skillful and successful Mayor of a Big City, but it is exceedingly difficult for a Republican to become a Mayor of a Major US Metropolis.

B. Sanders
The Socialist among us. This is sufficient to disqualify him from DonDiego's consideration. Too bad, he's probably honest; he just cannot/will not understand the incompatibility of Socialism with the Constitution of the United States. And he really believes that a dictatorial Socialist Government is better than a competitive free market as envisioned by the Founding Fathers. [n.b. For the record a Socialist Government may not start out as dictatorship, but once "the people" start disagreeing it inevitably becomes one.] DonDiego would hope that the Constitution would prohibit him from implementing his plans, but one never knows.

The Hillary
The primary accomplishment of the Clinton Two [now Three] over the years has been successfully avoiding legal prosecution for a continual and ever-broadening patter of lies, crooked deals, felonious behaviors*, double-dealing, and generally extralegal behaviors and managing to acquire a heck-of-a-lot of money without accomplishing anything productive. She and The Family might well manage a syndicate of criminal families extremely successfully, what with all the connections to the powerful and the monied. But if elected she would continue the degrading of the Office of the President which her husband began.
*This string is presently in peril. Guccifer is in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. DonDiego has hope.

For the life of me, I don't understand how you compare the shenanigans of the Republican process with the process and "Liarry" as you like to call her and Bernie. Hillary has 2.4 million more votes than Bernie. Bernie has captured 42 percent of the raw votes, but has 46 percent of the delegates.

I know this place is far right spin more than Rush Limbaugh, but this equivalence makes zero sense to me.