Month: April 2016

Do you want to be a delegate in Cleveland?  Then you, personally, need to win an election.  In Pennsylvania next week, 54 Republicans, in eighteen Congressional Districts, will win such an election, and be free to vote however they please.  In California, on June 7th, 159 Republicans  — running as proxies for one of the candidates  — will win such an election, and be pledged to their candidate.

But in the vast majority of states, you need to win an election at the State Convention.  You need a majority of your fellow delegates to vote for you.  Many of these people will either know you personally, or by reputation.  Being a delegate, this year, is a big responsibility.  These elections at State Conventions will be taken very seriously  by all concerned.

And it is the delegates to these State Conventions who have all the power.  Not the party bosses, or elites.  These delegates will have won elections of their own.  Most will have been elected at a precinct caucus to be a delegate to a county or district convention.  There they must win another election to be a delegate to the State Convention.  Where you’ll pay your own way, as well as a registration fee.

Very few people are interested enough in politics, or the Republican Party, to go through all these hoops.  The people who do it year after year are a very special type.  I’ve been one of them for over 50 years, and I know quite well how unusual such people are, at least in  most places.

In my experience, very few of these people are in it for self interest.  It may help your business somehow, or you may have some personal ax to grind, but that’s unusual.  Aside from a few who have some personal political ambition, these people do it out of a sense of civic duty.

Republicans who do this stuff are overwhelmingly conservative.  It’s their real motivation.  They believe in the Constitution and the Founding Fathers, and they are patriotic Americans.  And most of them understand politics a lot more than their average neighbor does.  They follow it closely, and they have some understanding of the issues.

These are not Trump people.  These are people who can’t stand Trump, for a whole suitcase of reasons.  And these are the people who will deny him the nomination.  Not Ted Cruz, or his campaign.  These people will do it on their own.  You saw it in Louisiana and Colorado and Wyoming.  You’ll see it all across the country, in 25 more State Conventions, beginning this weekend in Bangor.  The twelve Cruz delegates will be solid to the core.  The nine Trump delegates and two Kasich delegates will have a more flexible attitude.  Once they’ve cast their first ballot, they’ll have open minds, and be willing to listen to all sides.  Or they may be up front about it, and say they’re only for Trump on the first ballot, and then they switch to Cruz.

The so called “unbound delegates” that Trump will need are almost all going to be selected  by the delegates to these State Conventions.  These people will be seriously vetted.  If any shows any Trump tendencies they won’t get elected.  Not by these State Convention delegates, the people with the power, and the people who hate Trump.

Oh, Donald, did anyone ever tell you that politics ain’t beanbag?

That’s the way the system works.  It’s not simple, or easy, and it varies wildly from state to state.  We’re a big and diverse country.  People get to do things their own way.  It’s federalism.  It’s America.

For a century now, oil has either caused or ended wars, or both.  Ten days after the Armistice which ended the First World War, soon to be British Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon stated, “The Allied Cause floated to victory on a sea of oil.”  The Germans didn’t quit because they’d been militarily defeated.  They had two months of oil left.  They had no choice.

When Roosevelt ended oil exports to Japan in 1941, he planted the seed of Pearl Harbor.  As Japanese Foreign Minister Toyoda said in response, “… our Empire, to save its very life, must take measures to secure … ” the oil of the Dutch East Indies.   If the Axis had adequate oil supplies, God only knows how many more millions would have died in defeating it.

Oil, principally American oil, won two world wars, but after the second there was concern about dwindling American reserves, and Saudi Arabia was made an American client state to assure adequate supplies in the future.  Bush 1’s first Iraq war was all about oil, as was Bush 2’s second.  Aside from our alliance with Israel, we, and the rest of the world, would have little interest in the Middle East if it were not for oil.

The price of oil is determined by supply and demand, and for 40 years the Saudis have had the ability to influence it by setting its levels of production.  Even today, if they so chose, the Saudis could start pumping another million barrels a day if they wanted.  Unlike the Russians or the Arabs, American oil is all private sector, and is very quick to shut down production at unprofitable price levels.  As we shut down production, the balance of supply and demand will return, and the price of oil will rise again, as it always does.  American frackers, more so than the Saudis, are the swing producers.  In that sense, the United States can once again influence the price of oil on the world market.

George Mitchell, Harold Hamm and the other American oil men who gave us the fracking revolution have altered the geopolitics of the 21st Century.  At the right price, North America now has an energy surplus, and when the price of oil returns to the $50-$60 dollar range, we will once again be a net exporter.  We ought to join OPEC.  The problems of the Middle East are no longer important to our national security.  We could walk away from the whole mess and not have to worry about oil.  The Asians and Europeans want us to stay, and so we do.  But we don’t have to, for our own needs.

Most fracking activity is on private land.  The real opportunity for American frackers is on the federal lands in the Far West, where it’s locked up by the environmentalists in Washington who control it.  If Ted Cruz is able to keep his promise to the Far West, and that land is returned to the States, the vast oil reserves of this region will make North America energy independent for a hundred years.  And almost as importantly, our oil exports give us great leverage in the world.

Japan is our principal ally in Asia, and it needs oil now just as much as it did in 1941.  We should supply their oil, to bind them to us strategically.  This can be accomplished by opening ANWR, getting the Alaska Pipeline full of its oil, and shipping it from Valdez to Japan and South Korea.  It’s a matter of national security.  The lower 48 doesn’t need that oil, the frackers will see to that.  Look at a globe.  Alaska is a lot closer to Japan than the Middle East is.  And we’re reliable.  Japan and South Korea are our allies, and we’ll look out for them.

Electing Ted Cruz is the first step in seeing all this to fruition.  Much more needs to be done.  It’s politics.  It’s what I enjoy, and what I’ve done all my life, and what I’ve had some success at.  When I go to Alaska next week it won’t be for Cruz, or to defeat Murkowski.  It will be to promote the return of the land to the people.  The land of the Far West, to the people of the Far West.

Or, as we say up North, Alaska for Alaskans.

 

 

It just takes a while, in some cases.  And the truth about Trump isn’t pretty.  The reason  most people don’t know it is because big media is keeping it from them, purposefully.

As an example in 1998 John Lindauer was running for the Republican  nomination for Governor of Alaska.  He was corrupt, and the Anchorage Daily News knew it.  But they sat on the story until he won the nomination, and then absolutely destroyed him.  The same thing would happen with Trump, except on a much larger scale.

His campaign is in a painful transition, with Manafort taking over from the amateur, Lewandowski.  It will be interesting to watch that relationship develop, under extremely stressful conditions.  Manafort’s buddy, Roger Stone, had to leave over a year ago, when things were calm.  Ivanka’s back in the mix, and will be the one Trump listens to.  She seems like a pretty bright woman.  I don’t envy her, with her new baby the first thing on her mind.  What a rat’s nest.

The Republican electorate is divided into two camps, with 37% supporting Trump, and 63% opposed.  A lot of that 37% feels very intensely loyal, and will not accept anyone else.  But a lot of that 63% feels just the opposite.  They will not, and can not, accept Donald Trump as the nominee. And they’re going to do everything they can to stop him.  And this is the most important point.  The overwhelming majority of the delegates in Cleveland are part of that 63%, and they have all the power.  The party bosses don’t control them.  They’re free agents, at some point.   And they all know what they don’t want  — Donald Trump.

You hear some of the craziest things when you listen to reporters talk about politics.  These  guys don’t know a damn thing about politics.  I was watching With All Due Respect when one of the hosts said Trump was waiting until the Convention to approach the Cleveland delegates.  That way it would be easy, with all of them in the same place.  Apparently he thinks that’s what Cruz is doing, winning over delegates with his personal appearances in North Dakota, Colorado, and Wyoming.  Uh, dude, that’s not how it works.  He was going to win them whether he showed up or not.  The only reason he went was to publicize his preordained wins in three consecutive states.

For the first time, I started to identify with Cruz.  He and Heidi were on some show, and she was asked about her feelings about all the attacks on her husband.  And she said that from the first time she met him, he never allowed what other people thought about him to bother him.

That’s unusual for a politician. The only one I knew, personally, like that was Governor Jay Hammond of Alaska.  This guy was all man.  After flying for the Marines in the Pacific he came to Alaska, became a Bush pilot, and went Native, with a beautiful Eskimo wife.  I met him once, when he was running for reelection.

I was a volunteer for Hammond, and I actually did him a lot of good, and he knew it.  With what I did for Hammond, I made a lifelong enemy of the most powerful Republican politician in the state, Wally Hickel, a rich and vengeful man.

Four years later I was rewarded, in reapportionment, by a made to order vacant seat in the State Senate.  I could win the Republican primary unopposed, in a very Republican district.

That was Jay Hammond’s way of saying thanks.  Babbie and I had only been in the state for eight years, but we were on our way.

Jay never said a word to me about what he’d done.  He just did it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Donald Trump is over his head.  He doesn’t know what he’s doing, and his whining is a loser’s game.  Al Davis of the Oakland Raiders didn’t ever whine.  Just win, baby, and you don’t need to whine.

It’s worse than just whining.  He insulted every delegate who participated in a State Convention that he lost.  All those delegates and alternates from Wyoming, and Colorado and North Dakota and everywhere else resent  being called corrupt, for sale, to whoever buys them dinner or pays for their hotel room. If, indeed, anybody did, which I doubt.  They’ll all be in Cleveland, circulating at the Convention, and they’ll all be pissed off at Trump for impugning them, their state, and the entire process they went through in order to become delegates.   They’ll be anti-Trump ambassadors, along with a whole lot of other people.

To get to 1237 Trump needs unbound delegates.  He needs to convince these people that, even though he’s shy of majority, he deserves to be put over the top because he has more delegates than Cruz.  Implying that if they don’t, they’ve been bought and paid for is not a winning strategy.

Trump says the RNC better come around or there will be hell to pay in Cleveland.  Oh, really?  Maybe all the Trump delegates will simultaneously hold their breath until they turn purple, and then roll around the Convention floor together in a new kind of floor demonstration.  Or they boo a lot.  Or just make fools of themselves  by causing disruptions.  Good TV maybe,  but  not the way to win hearts and minds.

Add to that the fact that Trump and his campaign are liars and hypocrites.  David Drucker in the WaEx quotes an email from Charles Munoz, Trump’s Nevada State Director, in which he promises lodging and transportation to the Nevada State Convention on May 13th.  So why is Trump complaining, in Wyoming and Colorado, about what he himself is doing in Nevada?   Make up your mind, Trump, which is it?

You see Paul Manafort actually does know the Rules (all that’s required is an ability to read the English language), and he knows Trump better be in control of that State Convention in Reno or he’s going to get shafted, just as he has been at State Conventions all over the country.  The people giving Donald the shaft aren’t Cruz operatives, per se.  They’re the Republican Party leaders in each state, and almost all these guys know what they’re doing, they can’t stand Trump, and they’re going to do what they can to stop him.  The more he bitches and calls people names the more determined they are.  Whine all you want.  Those are the Rules.

The Nevada precinct caucuses gave Trump 14, Rubio 7,  Cruz 6, Carson 2 and Kasich 1.  If Cruz delegates control the Convention the nine Rubio and Carson delegates will be people who are inclined toward Cruz, not Trump.  If that’s the case, Cruz will go to Cleveland with 15 delegates, Trump with 14.  Gee, I bet the Donald would be pissed off.  He won the caucuses, but will wind up losing the state.

These nine delegates will be unbound, and free to vote for whoever they choose, but their preferences won’t be that hard to figure out.  The fight for control of the Nevada Convention, and the identity of these nine delegates, is a big test of the legendary skills of Paul Manafort.  He got in the game too late to do anything in Colorado or Wyoming.  But he’s all in in Nevada.  It’s a question of political organization.  Let’s see what you’ve got, Paul.  If you get hosed in Reno, you’re just a big mouth, like your boss.

If he goes to Cleveland with less than 1237 Trump will lose the nomination to Cruz.  He and his cult will be outraged, but it will be too late to mount anything but a token third party run.  So maybe they should all have a big rally, and Trump can hold his breath until he turns purple, and roll around on the stage, and the crowd can do likewise.  They’ll all feel much better, I’m sure.

A lot of these Trump people won’t vote, but with Clinton as his opponent Cruz can win without them.  Many of them don’t normally vote, or are Democrats.  Harry Truman lost the segregationist South to Strom Thurmond, and the loony left, in the person of Henry Wallace, also deserted him.  He won anyway, against a wishy washy Dewey.  By November Clinton will be toxic.  She’s corrupt, doesn’t really have solutions to the country’s problems, and is disliked and distrusted by vast swathes of the electorate.  Republicans will walk over broken glass to beat her.  She’s toast.

We don’t elect, or nominate, Presidents based on a plurality.  They tried that in Germany in 1933.  It’s not a good idea.

That’s what Ted Cruz told the Republican delegates in Casper today.  Or, more precisely, he said, “As President I will lead the effort to return the federal land in the West to the States, and the people.”  It got him a standing ovation and all fourteen of the national delegates up for a vote.

Trump was back In New York, explaining on Fox and Friends that his frugality and high moral standards led him not to compete in Wyoming.  He would have had to spend millions, he said, in thinly disguised  bribes of dinners and hotel rooms.  Those Republicans who met in Casper today were all bought and paid for, and the Donald won’t play that game.

He says this stuff with a straight face.  I’ll make a prediction.  These accusations of bribery by Cruz, and the alleged corruption of the Republican Party of Wyoming ,will never make it into the MSM.  It makes Trump look like a whining idiot and a loser, and they can’t have that.  He’s the only shot they’ve got at avoiding a disaster in November, and he must be protected.  These people in the media make me ill, with their pretensions of impartiality.  More and more Americans are on to them, and they, like many of the institutions of the Left (such as most Universities) , are in a slow death spiral.  They’re obsolete, and will wither.  But still today they matter  —  far too  much, I’m afraid.

And then there are the nitwits among them, the latest of which is  one Stephen Ohlemacher of AP.  He’s got a piece out showing how the Donald gets to 1237.  He gives him Indiana, 45-12, which he does not explain.  That’s just what has to happen, so it does.  And then, on June 7th, although he cleverly doesn’t directly say so, he gives Trump Montana and South Dakota and their 56 delegates.

Let me explain something to the esteemed Mr. Ohlemacher.  Montana and western South Dakota are part of the Far West, where Trump has had his ass kicked.  And eastern South Dakota is like its neighbors Minnesota and Iowa, not exactly Trump country, based on the caucuses.  South Dakota and Montana adjoin, and are surrounded by Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska and North Dakota, as well as Minnesota and Iowa.  Look at those states, and how well Trump has done in them.  I hate to say this but old Ohlemacher looks like he’s back on the sauce.

I still think I have a chance at going back to  Cleveland, although some of Roger Stone’s statements made me think I might be taking  my life in my hands.  I won’t have a gun with me, and I’m 70 years old, or else I wouldn’t worry about it.  But I’m not quite as concerned about my safety after today.  The “Days of Rage” that I was promised were  supposed to begin today in Denver, at a big protest rally against the Republican Party of Colorado.  We were assured that there was so much rage about the way Trump was cheated that a huge and angry throng would assemble.  Well, not exactly.  Between a hundred and two hundred.  Oh, well, never mind.

The statement on federal lands made by Cruz to the State Convention in Casper, and the reaction he got to it, was very important to me.  I loved the standing ovation the most.  This is an affirmation of what I’ve been saying for months.  These people, in that room, represent the people of the State of Wyoming.  There aren’t enough Democrats to matter.  And they want their land, just like the people of Alaska want their land, and all the people of the Far West want theirs.  And the next President of the United States just told us he’s going to lead the fight for us to get it.

Politically, this is a once in a century opportunity for the Far West.   We’ll put it in the platform in Cleveland, and begin a national discussion in the perfect political environment.  It’s Sagebrush II, but at a time far more auspicious for our cause.

I’m going to have a beer, and hoist it up for my old Uncle Fritz.