More succinctly -
Republican National Convention Rules – Myths vs. Facts
Prepared & presented by: Jeff Kent (National Committeeman for Washington) and Fredi Simpson (National Committeewoman for Washington)
1) MYTH: The rules are being changed in the middle of the game.
FACTS:
• Each convention sets its own rules.
• Each set of rules have only a 4 year life span.
• The current rules are simply coming to the end of their 4 years.
• The 2016 Convention will set its own rules at the beginning of the convention, just like every other convention before it.
• Nothing unusual or unfair is happening.
2) MYTH: The RNC or the RNC Chairman could keep the rules as they are, or change them at the last minute.
FACTS:
• No one can change the current rules…period.
• Only the 2016 Convention can adopt new rules to replace the current rules and they can only do that at the 2016 Convention.
• Neither the RNC nor the RNC Chairman can commit to keeping the existing rules, or commit to making any specific changes in the new rules. That simply is beyond their power.
• Everyone can predict what may happen, but no one can guarantee it.
3) MYTH: The “establishment” will stack the deck and try to choose their own candidate over the people’s choice.
FACTS:
• There is no higher power in the Republican Party than the National Convention, which is controlled by the 2,472 grassroots delegates.
• Nothing good and nothing bad can be done by the convention unless 1,237 of those delegates agree and vote to have it happen.
4) MYTH: Backroom politics will control the convention.
FACTS:
• There are no backrooms full of establishment power brokers pulling strings.
• Everything happens in open public meetings, or during open sessions on the convention floor.
5) MYTH: The convention delegates are all Party activists and politicians.
FACTS:
• The delegates are individuals from every walk of life. Farmers, teachers, retirees, firemen, business people, homemakers, students, etc.
• Some will be Party activists and politicians but all of them have to be elected by their grassroots Party members first. Even members of Congress must run to become a delegate.
• Each delegate is well respected and trusted by their local Republicans or they wouldn’t have been elected to represent them.
6) MYTH: The RNC is corrupting individual State rules and skewing the results as the primary schedule unfolds.
FACTS:
• All individual State primaries, caucuses, and delegate selection processes are conducted by their own State Party rules or State laws.
• All the State Party rules were adopted by each State Party last year and certified prior to October 1st.
• All rules for every State were public, long before the first vote was cast and will remain unchanged until after the last vote is counted.
7) MYTH: The rules and convention will be manipulated through underhanded politics and thereby corrupt the nomination process.
FACTS:
• Politics will certainly break out at every political convention.
• The campaigns will and should do everything they can to promote their candidate.
• The rules will be fairly and openly adopted and they will be followed to the letter.
• The only way anyone or any power could corrupt the system is to manipulate or coerce more than half of the 2,472 individual delegates into a conspiracy to do wrong.
• Everyone can be confident that will not happen. Instead the grassroots delegates will conduct themselves honorably and will enthusiastically nominate the next President of |
