The Republican National Committee is planning to propose that all candidates seeking the party’s presidential nomination must make a pledge that they will support the party’s eventual nominee if they want to participate in the primary debates..
Republican presidential candidates will be blocked from the debate stage this summer if they do not sign a pledge to support the GOP’s ultimate presidential nominee, according to draft language set to be adopted when the Republican National Committee meets next week.
The proposal sets up a potential clash with former President Donald Trump, who has raised the possibility of leaving the Republican Party and launching an independent candidacy if he does not win the GOP nomination outright. While RNC officials and Trump aides downplay that possibility, such a move could destroy the GOP’s White House aspirations in 2024 and raise existential questions about the party’s future.
“After the primary, it is imperative to the health and growth of our Republican Party, as well as the country, that we all come together and unite behind our nominee to defeat Joe Biden and the Democrats,” RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel said in a statement to The Associated Press when asked about the loyalty pledge.
…Facing similar concerns in 2016, Trump signed a similar loyalty pledge that was not tied to debates, but he later reneged as the primary campaign became more contentious. At the very first Republican primary debate that year, Trump was the only candidate on stage who refused to commit to supporting the party’s eventual nominee unless it was him.
Talk about pointless exercises! Hasn’t the party figured out Trump by now? He will be perfectly willing to sign such a pledge until he loses. Then he will find some way to claim that the nomination process was unfairly rigged against him and that therefore he is no longer obliged to stand by the pledge and that he can do as he damn well likes, even if that involves running as a third party candidate.
This is a man who refused to accept the results of an election that was run according to the US Constitution, a document that he, as president of the country, had sworn to uphold. Why would he care even two cents for a pledge given to the Republican party?
As long as they make him pinky swear, they’ll be fine… won’t they?
Charlie Brown, here is Lucy holding a football. Does any of this ring a bell?
Talk about pointless exercises! Hasn’t the party figured out Trump by now?
Of course they have, and of course they know it won’t do any good. This is literally the best they can do to pretend they’re standing up to Trump and enforcing party loyalty.
[stoned giggling] Let me know how that works out, yeah?
OT: Doc put me on gabapentin, and holy crapballs, it’s made a huge difference in the pain levels! Like, from a hard “don’t even breathe on me” 11 down to a relatively comfortable 4.5-5 on a good day.
(Today is not a good day, but at least my spine isn’t on fire like California in August.)
Continuing to talk about pointless exercises, can anyone name a republican whose pledge is worth anything? Bad faith is their “brand.”
@ WMDKitty -- Survivor
Good, it is good stuff. And once it isn’t good enough there is pregabalin, which I may be moving on to soon, apparently about six times stronger.
@6, mikey:
Can anyone name a politician of any stripe whose pledge is worth anything? I mean, the answer is probably “yes”, but you’d have to concede that whatever name you might come up with is very much the exception.
Top example from UK politics has to be current Facebook head of global affairs and former leader of the Liberal Democrats Nick Clegg. His party held the balance of power after the 2010 election, having reached that point on a manifesto promise to abolish university tuition fees. He got a sniff of power, chose to go into coalition with the Conservatives, and on his watch the government didn’t just retain tuition fees, with his help they tripled them.
I’d like to come up with an example of a Labour government promising something and not delivering, but I’ll be honest, nothing comes to mind. I’m pretty sure there’ll be something, but certainly nothing so egregious as Clegg’s u-turn. I’m amazed, quite honestly, that anyone would ever vote Lib Dem again after that bullshit, and they were satisfyingly wiped the fuck out in 2015, the only downside to which was Labour also took a kicking and call-me-Dave Cameron got in on a promise to deliver a referendum on EU membership, a promise which, sadly, he delivered on… and here we are.
@6 mikey: Mike Pence would keep his word. He would only promise for something that conforms to his weird religious rules but once he promises something he will carry through. Pence is not a spineless politician or a professional grifter, he is a religious cultist.
Not just Trump. It’s like a loyalty oath (cf. Catch 22) It’s purely symbolic, and there is nothing to hold anyone to it.
The only thing that would make it work would be if there were negative consequences, and in the past, politicians (of all parties) have deserted or even opposed their party’s nominee without ever suffering consequences.
Maybe you’ve got this backwards. Maybe the pledge is there to guarantee that everyone will support the nominee, even if it’s Trump.