Conservative icon Richard Viguerie, who endorsed Sen. Ted Cruz for President in December, is calling for an alliance between delegates supporting Cruz and Donald Trump to forestall efforts by GOP establishment party insiders to steal the nomination from one of the two anti-establishment candidates.
The 82-year-old direct mail fundraising trailblazer, who played a key role in developing the financial infrastructure that helped elect Ronald Reagan in 1980 and brought on the Newt Gingrich inspired Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in 1994, and co-author George Rasley, editor of CHQ.com “urge Donald Trump and Ted Cruz delegates . . . to follow the lead of their compatriots in Tennessee by forming an alliance to ensure that the Republican National Convention nominates a conservative – populist ticket.”
Writing in the fourth and final installment of a “series on what conservatives should do if Donald Trump wins the nomination,” Viguerie and Rasley address this scenario:
If Trump gets to 1,237 delegates, should movement conservatives join Trump in a unified conservative – populist ticket?
“As the evidence mounts that the goal of the Republican establishment is to create so much chaos in advance of the Republican National Convention that no candidate has a first ballot majority at the Convention, we think it is time for conservatives to consider all the alternatives, including what we should do if Donald Trump is leading at the Convention,” they write.
“While it is clear Donald Trump is no movement conservative, he is not necessarily an enemy of conservative policies, as we know Hillary Clinton and many establishment Republicans to be,” they continue.
They note that “Donald Trump’s lack of interest in many elements of the cultural conservative agenda is no small thing – that’s why we prefer Ted Cruz over Trump,” but add:
But when faced with a choice between Trump’s lack of interest versus the deep and abiding hostility of Hillary Clinton, and the betrayals and lies of the Republican establishment, Trump’s indifference to much of the conservative agenda would leave us with a candidate who, unlike John McCain and Mitt Romney, might at least be educable.
“And ‘Trumpism’ is not as alien to conservatism as some would like us to believe,”they write, elaborating that:
Anyone who has read Phyllis Schlafly’s “A Choice Not An Echo” will recognize why the First Lady of the Conservative Movement endorsed Donald Trump.
Mrs. Schlafly posited in 1964 that only by breaking the unseen powerbroker’s hold on power in Washington and the state capitals could conservative governance be achieved – and as the Reagan Revolution of 1980 and the Tea Party wave elections of 2010 and 2014 failed to bring about permanent change and government according to limited government constitutional conservative principles, she was right.
Since 1980, while most Republicans run as conservatives, a majority of Republican Members of Congress have been co-opted into supporting open borders, amnesty for illegal aliens, trade deals that subvert American sovereignty and congressional spending that is so out of control and divorced from reality that it boggles the mind.
Viguerie and Rasley note that GOP primary voters have indicated a strong preference for either Cruz or Trump over any of the establishment alternatives:
Either Trump or Cruz has finished first or second in every primary or caucus, except DC. Through the first dozen primaries Trump alone booked more popular votes than the two leading establishment candidates combined; 7,542,328 vs 6,091,821 for Kasich and Rubio. Together Cruz and Trump have more than twice the establishment popular vote – 13,023,702 vs 6,091,821.
“The Establishment clearly intends to seek changes in the convention rules at the last minute to enable them to circumvent the votes of millions of people and the vast majority of Trump and Cruz delegates at the Convention to slip in a nominee who does not reflect the conservative/populist appeal of the two leading candidates,” former Nashville talk show host Steve Gill, a Ted Cruz delegate in Tennessee, tells Breitbart News.
“This Convention should set the rules for the NEXT campaign, not change the rules in the middle of the game because the Establishment is losing badly to two candidates who reflect the dissatisfaction and outright anger of millions of Republican voters who are fed up with the insider games played in Washington that never produce the results promised at election time,” Gill says.
Gill has an interesting take on the suggested alliance between Cruz and Trump delegates.
“At this point it is probably premature for the Trump and Cruz to partner as a ticket, since both still have a path to secure the nomination. Although as a Cruz delegate I wouldn’t mind it if they did it in alphabetical order,” Gill notes with a laugh.
“It is not, however, too early for the Cruz and Trump delegates to form an alliance, and for the two campaigns to encourage it, to demand that the rules in place at the LAST convention remain in place for THIS one. The only exception might be the rule that the Romney team inserted to try to block Ron Paul from being place in nomination as a last minute shot at he and his delegates,” he adds.
Viguerie and Rasley then summarize the options currently available to conservatives.
“If conservatives form their own cultural conservative Third Party to oppose Trump in the General election they are certain to elect Hillary Clinton,” they write.
“If conservatives sit out the election they are certain to elect Hillary Clinton,” they note.
“Based on the historical evidence,” they add,” the results to-date in the 2016 primaries and 2016 exit polling if conservatives make a deal at the Republican National Convention to deprive Donald Trump of the nomination they are certain to elect Hillary Clinton.”
“The only scenario that does not, on its face, result in the election of Hillary Clinton,” they conclude,” is an alliance at the Republican National Convention between Cruz’s conservative delegates and Trump’s populist delegates who unite to guarantee that the two leading post-primary candidates are nominated as President and Vice President – as they were in 1980.”
Tennessee Cruz delegate Gill offers an explanation of the complexities surrounding the delegate selection process in football terms.
“Some of the delegates, particularly among the SEC in the South, may not fully understand the inner workings of how the Establishment is trying to steal the Presidential nomination by changing the rules, but we do understand football!” Gill tells Breitbart News.
“The plan being undertaken by the party elite is like two dominant teams playing in the SEC Championship for a shot at a National Championship and late in the fourth quarter some team from outside the conference shows up demanding to receive the Championship trophy and the ticket to the National Championship game. Both the Trump and Cruz teams should unite and declare loudly, forcefully and clearly that this scheme will not be allowed to happen through some late game change in the rules,” he says.
“Both of the campaigns should fight for the nomination within the existing rules and shut down all efforts to change the rules to suit the elites who have been shut down at the polls,” Gill concludes.
Gill also offers an interesting social media tactic Cruz and Trump delegates could use to independently coordinate alliances in other states:
Everybody has a hashtag these days, so maybe the Cruz and Trump folks need to unify under the banner of #allrulesmatter to make our point. If the Cruz and Trump delegates don’t come together on this issue, even while still battling for who gets the nomination between them, then we are likely to show up at the Convention with the fix being put in place and both groups being outraged over what was done because we didn’t take the steps to stop it when we could. Right now is the time to stop it.
Sources in at least one other state, Alabama, tell Breitbart News that Trump and Cruz delegates there are considering an alliance similar to that currently under discussion in Tennessee.
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