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The Biggest Flaw in the Republican Party

I wish I could sit down with Reince Priebus and get him to understand one simple fact.

As all these spokespeople salivate over brokered conventions, and stack delegates who will abandon the will of the voters from their home states, do people like Reince Priebus realize they’re making the GOP’s biggest flaw even worse?

I’m a lifelong Republican and I hate to say publicly what has to be admitted.

Here goes…

The Republican Party isn’t as popular as it thinks it is.

But it’s acting like it is.

The fact is the Favorability-unfavorability [1] rating of the Republican Party has been upside-down for the past 10 years. Republican unfavorability recently peaked at 60%.

No wonder the Party’s chosen candidates have wilted when the voters had the say.

There are tons of independent voters who are only independent because they aren’t fans of the Republican Party. In fact, Independents outnumber Republicans close to two to one. Of those Republicans, there are tons of Republican voters who vote Republican because they oppose Democrats so much that they vote for Republicans as basically their only other choice.

So when Priebus defends the delegate process because it was used by Lincoln, does he really know he’s making the opposition’s point?

Unless the Presidential slogan for the year is going to be “Let’s Party Like It’s 1860,” the comment makes us seem hopelessly out of touch.

I’m in a happy place this year, in that I’m fine with Trump, Cruz, Kasich and would’ve been fine with about a half dozen other Republican candidates who didn’t do so well.

If Trump doesn’t get to 1237, every argument that he shouldn’t be the nominee goes double for Cruz and goes 50 times as much for the one-state wonder, Kasich.

Of course, the Democrats are 10 times worse with their “superdelegates” basically blocking anyone but their chosen candidate from ever having a chance.

Today’s New York primary will be held, and all the delegates will be hand picked by the party and appointed with no requirement that they support the winner of the primary beyond Ballot 1. Have you seen Pennsylvania’s rules? Does the primary even matter?

The RNC set up a system that guaranteed that with all the proportional voting, 1237 was a difficult number to reach, if not impossible. Now states late in the process, who have never really mattered much since the presumed nominee is pretty much decided by now in elections past, have some kooky rules except this time it matters.

The bottom line is this: to most Americans, if the candidate with the most wins is ousted and someone else is nominated, it will look like an inside coup and tells every primary voter that the elections are just for show.

And Reince will smile and say “those are the rules.”

Americans have their rules, too.

Football refs don’t call holding on every play. Hockey refs put their whistles away in overtime. Boxing refs don’t bother counting to 8 when a boxer is clearly out on his feet.

Maybe if the Republican Party was the most popular political force in America, it could tout its rules and say all is fair. But polls show that strength isn’t there.

We haven’t elected a Republican Presidential ticket without a Bush on it since Richard Nixon won re-election.

Stop touting 1860 and start treating voters like their votes matter.

Reince, think about that.