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Accountability general freedom national politics & policies political challengers

The Primary Lie

Are we being lied to?

Donald J. Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee for president. So presumes the news media and Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, because all those delegates are bound to vote for Trump on the first ballot.

But what if Republican delegates convening this July aren’t bound. That’s the compelling case made by a new book, Unbound: The Conscience of a Republican Delegate,* written by Curly Haugland and Sean Parnell.

How does modern America get something so wrong, when it’s written down in black-​and-​white? Politicians don’t read the bills they enact and, apparently, politicos don’t read their party rules.

Except crazy ol’ Curly Haugland. The Republican National Committeeman from North Dakota reads and understands: convention delegates choose the nominee. In so doing, they are free to vote their conscience, unbound by primary or caucus votes, state party rules or even state law.

This information should anger voters. Political parties have a right to their own process, certainly, but not to pretend primary voters determine the winner, when they don’t.

Why the deception?

Well, the insiders and big-​time consultants, with sway at RNC headquarters, make millions on TV ad buys. Not so for a nomination determined by core activists at a state convention, who aren’t susceptible to the expensive tricks of the modern political trade.

The media has a financial interest, too — in more readers, listeners and viewers. If primaries are known as merely “beauty contests,” they fear folks will tune out, along with paying advertisers.

Instead, tune in, turn on and download Unbound. Find out what the media and the RNC won’t tell you.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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* Published by Citizens in Charge Foundation, the book can be downloaded for free here.

 


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Accountability Common Sense First Amendment rights free trade & free markets general freedom ideological culture nannyism national politics & policies responsibility too much government U.S. Constitution

re: Solutions

Today’s the traditional day for New Year’s “Resolutions,” but instead of resolutions, how about some solutions?

Sure, Thomas Sowell has sagely reminded: there are no solutions in social life, only trade-offs.

But, utopian perfection aside, let’s agree that some changes would be better than others, and, let us resolve to solve some nagging problems — or at least trade up. And since the really nagging problems are political …

For Republicans: this could be the year to give up on government as society’s chief moral agent, empowered to regulate everybody’s medicine cabinets and bloodstreams. End the failed War on Drugs, with legalizing marijuana the simplest first step. Vice will continue, as it always has. But it’s another kind of vice to think that force, policing and imprisoning folks, will “solve” the problem. Much less even reduce the availability of drugs.

For Democrats: this could be the year to give up on government as micromanager of markets — and people’s marketplace choices. Face it: folks will make decisions that liberals don’t like. They’ll eat at McDonalds and buy large sodas — and the wrong stocks. And guns! But adding to the mass of regulations doesn’t make consumers choose better, it makes stuff more expensive and business less open to competition. Indeed, almost all the regulations designed to help “the little guy” backfire, helping big business by hobbling their upstart competitors.

Our leaders, at present, cannot even balance budgets. They are addicted to debt. To pretend we must have more and more government to prevent our addictions or save us from personal debt is ludicrous.

Can we resolve to stop pretending that bigger government is always the solution?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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