There remains a chance Republican delegates to the convention in Cleveland will be freed of their obligation to support Trump and permitted – as conservative writer William Kristol put it – to vote their conscience.
Advertisement
Lori Hack told Arizona GOP chairman Robert Graham last week that she’ll defy his demand that all the state’s 58 delegates vote for Trump because he won the presidential primary in March. The committee is scheduled hold a 90-minute orientation on Wednesday in Cleveland, followed by 10-hour meetings on Thursday and Friday, devoted to reviewing rules proposals.
The conservative, joined by his wife on the panel, is one of the highest-profile committee members and has been non-committal on his views about whether the results of this year’s primaries and caucuses should continue to bind numerous delegates to Trump on the first round of nomination balloting.
“We’re all working together and focused on the things that the American people are anxious about”, he said. “Delegates are the authority of the Republican Party”.
“People really came together and understood we need to defeat Hillary Clinton, that that would be a disaster for the country if she were elected president”, he said.
A senior Trump campaign official said the dissenting voices who are still having trouble trusting Trump on ideology are not representative of the party as a whole, pointing to his sweep of the GOP primaries.
The Republican platform committee is controlled by some of the party’s most vocal opponents of LGBT rights.
Advisers for the American Unity Fund, who say they know they are fighting a steep uphill battle, argue that the Republican Party can no longer afford to alienate people on gay rights issues.
It’s his first time as a delegate to a national convention, something he never expected to experience.
Still, if the anti-Trump people manage to get past the first ballot, Wheeler predicts chaos in Cleveland.
“I can vote on the rules committee, theoretically, however I wanted to”, he said.
Party platforms and the planks that make them up are not necessarily strict guidance for candidates in an election year, however they are issues submitted, voted on and approved by loyal members which make up the core party.
According to their Web site, the platform is “a statement of who we are and what we believe as a party”. Given that Trump has about 890 delegates personally loyal to him and 680 in opposition, the Journal reports, getting to 1,237 would require persuading almost two-thirds of remaining delegates to take a defiant stand.
All planks approved by subcommittees must still be approved this week by the full platform committee of 112 delegates, and then by the full convention next week. Here’s a guide to what to expect, based on advance announcements and past conventions. The convention’s presiding officer – who at times will be Priebus or House Speaker Paul Ryan – has clout to decide who to recognize on the convention floor to make procedural motions.
The original draft of the 2016 GOP platform, obtained by CNN, included a passage about Title IX that chastises the White House for federal guidance instructing public facilities like schools to accommodate transgender individuals. Much of Donald Trump’s success this year came from independent voters who were not registered Republicans.
Advertisement
Eastland says he supports the movement to allow delegates to back anyone, but concedes it will be “very, very difficult” to prevail.
