Trump Planned to Exploit Colorado Loss

Friday - April 15, 2016

RUSH: Trump has this op-ed in the -- this is gonna be tough when I get to that.  Turmp has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.  I have it in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers here. 

"On Saturday, April 9th," Mr. Trump begins, in his op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today, "On Saturday, April 9, Colorado had an “election” without voters. Delegates were chosen on behalf of a presidential nominee, yet the people of Colorado were not able to cast their ballots to say which nominee they preferred.

A planned vote had been canceled. And one million Republicans in Colorado were sidelined."

Now I hate to do this, but that just isn't correct.  There was never going to be an election, a primary election in Colorado and this op-ed gives the impression that Colorado was gonna have a vote. There was gonna be a primary and people are gonna vote like they have in other states and at the last-minute changed their mind.  There never was a plan to vote.  There was never a plan to vote that was canceled in Colorado.  Colorado was always, from last August, going to be what it was:  a series of conventions where delegates would be chosen to the convention by Republican attendance at these various county conventions and at the big state convention, but there was never gonna be a vote. 

And this op-ed -- you know, I asked a question two days ago, and I asked it again yesterday.  And that question was, why didn't Trump call attention to Colorado not having an election beforehand?  Why did he wait until Colorado's process was complete to lodge a complaint about it?  And this op-ed gives us the answer.  You know what we have here?  Trump and Colorado is a classic lesson in winning by losing.  How to win by losing. 

It is apparent to me now that the Trump campaign was fully aware that they were gonna lose Colorado this way and had found and discovered a way to turn that to their advantage by claiming that Colorado had cheated, by claiming that Colorado was disenfranchising people, by claiming that Colorado was gonna have a vote and then changed their mind.  But their never was a plan to vote.  So I've answered my question.  Trump waited 'til after Colorado to exploit the fact that there was not an election there, and it helped his point if he lost. 

So for those of you devising campaign strategies in the future, file this one under the category of winning by losing.  And even in the next page of the op-ed he refers to it again.  He said: "No one forced anyone to cancel the vote in Colorado. Political insiders made a choice to cancel it. And it was the wrong choice."  There was no vote ever intended to happen.  So there was never in this cycle a cancellation of an election.  But Trump's op-ed makes it look like there was a scheduled vote and a last minute cancellation to disenfranchise people because they didn't want Trump to win.

And Trump supporters are more than happy to embrace that.  I mean, every supporter loves it when their guy is the victim of some cheating or some dirty trick.  So I've answered my question.  Why didn't Trump call attention to this before they caucused in Colorado?  Because he was counting on losing and then exploiting it, which he's done brilliantly, and here you have this op-ed in the Wall Street Journal which carries the theme forward.  

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  Oh, yeah, this Trump op-ed, it carries on the narrative that is fundamental to populism.  You cannot have populism without the impression that the man is shafting the little guy.  So the contretemps, the controversy in Colorado has actually buttressed Trump's campaign theme, that the political system is rigged against the little guy, in this case Trump's the little guy, he's the outsider.  So the political process is rigged against the little guy.  He's the champion of little guys, so they're rigging it against him.  And his op-ed today, making it look like Colorado had planned to have an election and canceled the plan, that didn't happen.  There was never going to be an election. 

It doesn't matter.  As far as Trumpists are concerned, their guy got screwed and that's the end of it.  And not only did their guy get screwed, the American people got screwed because the establishment didn't let people vote, even though there never was going to be a vote. 

Back to the phones.  Louisa in Greeley, Colorado.  Great to have you with us.  Hello.

CALLER:  Hi.

RUSH:  Hey.

CALLER:  Bake sale dittos to you, Rush.

RUSH:  Thank you very much.

CALLER:  Yes, I wanted to give you an eyewitness account from Colorado assembly on Saturday the 9th to tell you that the room fell silent for Ted Cruz and we all listened with rapt attention. But when Trump's man stood up, that was the time that people chose to go refresh their coffee. The speech was forgettable, but Ted Cruz's was sound, and we all listened.  We did in fact have an election, lots of elections.  We have them at every precinct, which is how I ended up as a delegate.  So it is not true to say that there were no elections in Colorado.  In fact, there were lots.

RUSH:  Okay.  But there was not a primary election like everybody thinks of primary elections, where average, ordinary common people go to the polls and vote.  Colorado chose their delegates in a different way.  They were gonna be unbound anyway even if there had been an election like had always been the case.  Look, folks, you can say what you want.  If you remove yourself from it in a preference way and just look at this as, say, in a scientific study, you have to acknowledge that this has been fairly well planned and well executed. 

I mean, it's abundantly clear to me now that the Trump campaign knew a long time ago Colorado wasn't gonna have an election.  Not a standard, ordinary, typical primary election.  It's abundantly obvious to me now that the Trump campaign planned on exploiting it right along the lines of their entire campaign theme.  Outsider, populism, deck stacked against the outsider, who represents the little guy.  They knew there wasn't gonna be a primary.  They knew there wasn't gonna be a primary vote.

So the objective, don't mention this beforehand, 'cause what you want to do is lose this, to be able to then go forth and write your Wall Street Journal op-ed about how an election had been planned and canceled. I mean, the implied thing there is "They knew we were gonna win, they knew we were gonna win," the Trump people say, "and so they canceled the election so we wouldn't win." Never mind there wasn't an election. Never mind there never was gonna be an election. Never mind there was gonna be a primary.  Therefore there wasn't an election that could be canceled.  Doesn't matter. 

In the world where perception is reality, this is another slam dunk score and I'm sure there's some people upset about it who think that this ought to be all aboveboard and honest.  Issues are very important, these are serious times, we don't have time to monkey around here, we gotta in there, we gotta address these issues, we gotta educate people, they gotta vote as an informed electorate as possible. And one side is saying, to hell with that, we're just gonna win. Whatever it takes to win, we're gonna win. We can't go forward without winning, that's the objective, we're gonna win.  And that seems to be the guiding principle and philosophy here. 

Eric in Bedford, New York.  It's great to have you.  You're next on Open Line Friday.  Hi.

CALLER:  Hello.  I think Donald Trump is more interested in starting a new party, something much larger than just being a president.  There are lots of presidents, but far fewer political parties, and I think that's a much bigger ambition, much more in keeping with his big personality.

RUSH:  So are you saying that Trump not only wants to win the presidency, that as part of that he wants to create a new party along with it?

CALLER:  That's correct.

RUSH:  So it's not that he is trying to create a party that might lose the presidency.  He's trying to do both, in your opinion?

CALLER:  That's correct.  He would never try to lose anything.  I think he would try to win, but I think the presidency itself is even smaller than he thinks.  I think he thinks bigger, and bigger than the president would be an entire political party.

RUSH:  Look, I understand that last point you made, but I have to tell you something.  I don't think the presidency is small.  I think Obama's made it huge.  I think Obama's turned the presidency into something that it's never constitutionally written to be.  Erick Erickson had an op-ed at his website with this as the premise. His point, the reason there is so much controversy in these campaigns now, the reason there's so much acrimony is because the presidency has become so powerful, much more powerful than it was ever written to be in the Constitution. 

So everybody wants it.  And everybody wants it to be used to pave the way for the things that they want.  And that if the presidency weren't nearly as powerful as Obama has made it, and maybe some other previous ones, too, that it wouldn't have such importance.  You might be able to debate whether or not campaigns would be less intense, but it's still a good point that the presidency is not small now.  It's a much larger branch.  It's not coequal with the other two by any stretch.