Politics

Contra Cruz: In Defense Of A Contested Convention

Matt K. Lewis Senior Contributor
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[crscore]Ted Cruz[/crscore] recently portrayed a contested convention as a way the Republican establishment “can snatch this nomination from the people.”

“If the Washington deal-makers try to steal the nomination from the people,” he continued, “I think it will be a disaster. It will cause a revolt.”

Snatch? Steal?? Revolt???

Cruz’s rhetoric has a populist ring to it, but what does it really mean? Am I not a person? Are the 2,472 delegates who would vote at a contested convention not people?

I’m perplexed. If Ted Cruz (or Donald Trump… or anyone else) fails to garner 1,237 delegates prior to the convention, they will not have won a majority of the delegates up for grabs. In other words, the majority of delegates will have been awarded to someone else (if Cruz thinks we should get rid of the delegates system and just have a popular vote, that’s another story).

Why would playing by the rules constitute “stealing” the election?

Does Cruz believe conventions are inherently illegitimate? I’ve been to some. In Virginia, it’s not unusual for the GOP’s gubernatorial candidate to be nominated at a convention. Is that illegitimate?

Perhaps Cruz only believes an orchestrated effort to deny someone the nomination is bad. That would mean an organic outcome to the same effect is perfectly fine.

Still, one wonders: What’s wrong with playing defense? With apologies to Mitt Romney, long before he proposed the strategy, I suggested that Cruz, [crscore]Marco Rubio[/crscore], and John Kasich should team up and “become regional candidates who conspire to deprive Trump of winning their delegate-rich home states.” (For this very reason, I suggested a conservative living in Texas should vote for Cruz on Super Tuesday.)

It’s not unethical or illegal, but it is hardball politics. It is admittedly strategic, which also means it is unseemly. But it’s no more cynical or calculating than, say, Ted Cruz’s idea of buddying up to Donald Trump for months, in hopes that he would inherit Trump’s supporters… And my idea is much less self-serving, inasmuch as it doesn’t negate the possibility that Cruz or Trump (or anyone else) could emerge from a Republican convention as the nominee.

Cruz, I’m sure, suspects that the “establishment” would never allow him to become the nominee, but I’m not so sure there are any brokers left to broker an unholy alliance of the magnitude he fears. If they can stop Trump from winning outright, that, alone, will be a stretch. And if Cruz finishes the primary race in second place, Republican leaders might well decide the only palatable way to deprive Trump (who would likely have a plurality of the votes) the nomination—without the convention (in Cruz’s words) descending into “a revolt”—would be to give it to Cruz.

This is going to be awkward when Ted Cruz emerges from the convention as the GOP nominee.

The author’s wife previously advised Ted Cruz’s campaign for U.S. Senate.

Matt K. Lewis