CONCORD, N.H. -- The state Ballot Law Commission on Wednesday quickly threw out a former New Hampshire Republican Party chairman's challenge to Donald Trump's eligibility to be on the GOP first-in-the-nation primary ballot.Fergus Cullen, the former head of the New Hampshire's Republican Party, is currently a columnist for the state's influential Union Leader newspaper as well as the founder of a pro-immigration group called Americans by Choice. His genius idea was to try to get the guy who's leading the New Hampshire polls by double digits thrown off the ballot, claiming he's not really a Republican, even though voter registration records show that he is. And there's reason to suspect Cullen wasn't acting alone:
After a hearing that lasted about two minutes, the five-member commission voted unanimously that the challenge filed by Fergus Cullen was without merit because New York state election records clearly show that Trump is a registered Republican in that state.
"Why are we here?" commission chairman Brad Cook asked Cullen....
"You are challenging someone's filing," Cook said. "This commission is not the forum for speeches or electioneering or advancing any other candidate. If you have any information that he is not in fact a Republican, then share it with us."
Cullen replied, "I do not have that information."
Cullen said he filed the complaint on his own behalf. He also said a super PAC promoting Ohio Gov. John Kasich for president, A New Day for America, was aware that he would be filing the complaint before he did so and is “on the same page” believing that Trump is not a true Republican.” Cullen, however, said he is not supporting Kasich, or any candidate, for president at the moment.The Trump campaign believes there's a Kasich-Cullen link:
Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, in a statement to the Union Leader, suggested that Cullen works for Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a Republican rival far behind Trump in the polls....New Day for America, as I told you yesterday, is both a super PAC and the epicenter of a major effort to bring down Trump using $2.5 million is right-wing billionaire cash.
In response to Lewandowski's claim, Cullen said he is not working for Kasich, and that he so far remains uncommitted. He and his wife Jenny held a house party for Kasich last weekend. He has also held events for Jeb Bush and Lindsey Graham.
Is Trump a "true Republican"? He wasn't in the past -- but by now Republicanism and Trumpism are pretty much the same. Roughly a quarter of GOP voters love Trump and plan to vote for him -- and this GOP Establishment figure's response to that is to try to deny those people their democratic choice, based on an evidence-free assertion that Trump isn't eligible. And the guy throwing out this allegation is a pro-immigration activist.
Is this a deliberate attempt to make Trump bolt the GOP and run third party, as he's threatening to do again, with the distinct possibility that he'll take angry voters with him? Is that what Cullen wants? Is that what Kasich and the folks at his PAC want?
Well, if they keep this up, that's what they'll get. Pass the popcorn.
I'm not sure the FSM loves me enough to make Trump make a 3rd party run. But yeah, they have no idea how to deal with Trump and everything they try seems calculated to make it worse.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, some establishment Republicans are daring to utter the "F" word -- to call The Donald a fascist -- out loud in public.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cnn.com/2015/11/24/politics/donald-trump-fascism/index.html
What will this do? Help or hurt Trump? Be ignored by the rest of the MSM? Damned if I know. But read the article; it's striking to see some conservative types feeling the same horror and disgust as us liberals.
"...$2.5 million in billionaire cash..."
ReplyDeleteOh, you mean a quarter of a penny in dollaraire cash? I wouldn't say they're not lifting their little fingers, but there do seem to be some wild nail clippings flying around....
Seriously (which this a'n't), you're either in the game or you're not; it is no good bringing a bent Q-tip to a sword fight and claiming that you left your sword home so it wouldn't catch rust.
(Besides, Kasich knows better. A seat at the table in Columbus cost at least $15M thirty years ago.)
Yes, GOP establishment, help Trump by making him a martyr in the eyes of a base that's full of people who feel alredy like victimized martyrs themselves.
ReplyDeleteNot smart.
At all.
The stink of desperation reeks like a corpse left in a dark warm wood for weeks.
Am I implying that the GOP establishment is like that corpse?
You tell me.
Someone raised Goldwater 1964 on another flaming lefty blog; it's not nearly the first time. I found it too provocative not to go back and read that part of Rick Perlstein's Before The Storm to see how that actually holds up.
ReplyDeleteI don't THINK it holds up because, while a lot of the dynamics are reminiscent, and while it's certainly possible to characterize Goldwater as the most extreme among the several even arguably credible candidates for the GOP nomination in that cycle, George Romney and Nelson Rockefeller today both would be way too far left loony to win a primary for this current GOP's nomination for any big city or state legislative office, let alone a national office even just in the House. John Lindsay FCOL was a rising GOP stat in those days, and recall he switched to being a Dem in 1971. IOW there WERE serious 'centrist' even [sign of the cross] 'liberal' alternatives in the GOP then.
This time the Big Red Commies are Jeb! and Kasich...insufferable willing tools. The Overton Window's been taken out and relocated in a Prussian beer hall for WW One vets. How does a party with a contestant list THIS disordered end up even with someone as tolerant as the (relatively humanitarian) Goldwater?
Answer: they don't. Not even Rubio is rabid enough for the nasty wave that's bringing in this pack of ravenous orcas. Either Trump gets it, or Cruz does. The only credibility to Trump's reserving the threat to run as in independent is if the party establishment games it so anyone other than those two get picked.
It makes sense, sort of: if the goal is actually to grab the White House, and they're up against a candidate with an historic plea that would beat anyone of them in a fair election, fuck that fair election bullshit: run full metal fascist, beat up folks, threaten folks, and just steal the g.d. thing.
Fifteen years I've telling people no longer applies (really, look at the current post at my place), in return I've seen slander, libel, words I never saw in a bible: been accused of being an atheist (yep), anarchist (yep), revolutionary (yep), commie (nope), a f#cking liberal, radical lefty, a conspricacy nut. Now a prominent reichwinger makes the suggestion and everyone takes it seriously, WTF?
ReplyDeleteIt's long been my conviction the tea baggers are just Y2K nuts and they're right, but as before they still just can't quite wrap their fingers around it.
Did my smart phone just censor "Godwin's Law" out of that comment? It was in there when I clipped it out of WordPress. Hit publish and it was gone.
ReplyDeleteWell, challenging Barack Obama's eligibility worked out so well for them. . .
ReplyDelete