Since I know some of you are G&S aficionados. One has to grant the Combover Caligula a certain talent: He really puts the embarrassment in an embarrassment of riches. Meanwhile, among the serious people, the Clinton campaign has released a preview of the convention speakers: Monday: United Together Featuring First Lady Michelle Obama, Senator Bernie …
Saturday Morning Open ThreadPost + Comments (165)
NEW: Ted Cruz to hold event for supportive RNC delegates Wednesday at Shooters, a Cleveland waterfront bar https://t.co/yjSi19tZxG
— Reid J. Epstein (@reidepstein) July 14, 2016
…Mr. Cruz, who hasn’t endorsed presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, will speak to delegates at the convention, the Republican National Committee announced on Thursday.
Before he accepted Mr. Trump’s invitation to speak at the convention when they met last week in Washington, Mr. Cruz’s team had considered holding a large event in Cleveland. In 2008, Ron Paul rented a 15,000-seat arena to speak to supporters in Minneapolis while John McCain was nominated at a different arena in nearby St. Paul, Minn…
Here’s Cruz’s self-professed “best friend” Mike Lee:
My interview with Mike Lee, predicting a backlash to RNC's squashing of delegate quest for conscience vote https://t.co/uLv5rMOTOl
— Jon Ward (@jonward11) July 15, 2016
… Lee, a U.S. senator from Utah, stood and voted with a group of Republicans who were trying to allow all 2,472 delegates to vote according to their conscience and not necessarily for the candidate to whom they were pledged…
It didn’t work. A well-organized effort by a squad of veteran Republican operatives, working on behalf of the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee, dealt the “conscience vote” effort a stinging defeat in the convention Rules Committee. The motion didn’t get anywhere close to enough votes to send it to the full committee. Trump’s supporters on the committee and at the RNC went out of their way to ensure the effort’s defeat, preventing Lee and the other supporters of the measure from debating it, and not even allowing anything more than a voice vote…
In the committee meeting, Lee did not concede that Trump — who is now all but certain to be named the GOP’s nominee next Wednesday night — will in fact be the party’s choice… He seemed to hint at the prospect of a demonstration on the floor of the convention, noting that “as we will see in a few days” the “angst” among many anti-Trump delegates or those with serious reservations about Trump “isn’t just going to go away.”
When I asked Lee if there would be an attempted revolt on the floor of the convention, he was evasive, likely because he needs to collect his thoughts and also perhaps keep Trump’s campaign off balance. “I don’t know. I don’t know,” he said. When I asked if he would speak out over the next few days, before the convention starts Monday, to protest the RNC’s strong-armed treatment of the “conscience vote” delegates, he was again noncommittal. “We’ll see,” he said…
It’s gotta be frustrating for the #BernieOrBust holdouts. Given the Repubs’ previous achievements in anarchic risibility, mere journeyman attempts like a “fart in” on the DNC convention floor are liable to come off as second-rate, or even imitative.