So they can also change it, if needed, to allow establishment candidates to pool their delegates.
Three of these things are not like the others.
Yes, I know that Guam, Northern Marianas, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Virgin Islands are not legally states as far as the United States government is concerned. As far as the rules of the Republican Party and the Republican Convention are concerned they are:
Words are used differently in different contexts. When discussing the rules of the Republican National Convention, it serves no useful purpose to make the distinction. But if you think it would enhance the conversation, please feel free to substitute “states and other entities treated by the Republican National Convention rules as if they were states” wherever you see the word “states.”
They can’t order a delegate to do anything - though obviously a delegate pledged to a candidate is going to listen and probably go along with any deal. I don’t know if they are all pledged in the first round and then not in subsequent votes, or whether this varies by state or is a national rule.
Yeah, it could happen, and it looks like it might.
You may be right that party leaders try hard to get a consensus early. That doesn’t mean they have the power to do so every time. This year looks different.
Don’t go around telling us something can’t possibly happen, thanks.
It is the former.
The pledge to vote for a certain candidate is made to the voters, not to the candidate. The candidate cannot order any delegate to do anything. Of course, delegates are very likely to comply with requests from the candidate they support, but it’s not a rule.
No, it doesn’t.
No, it doesn’t.
It can’t possibly happen.
It does to me.
It does to me.
Yes it can.
Are we done now?
Lance, let’s hope it does happen, and then we’ll meet back here and see if Exapno eats crow or slinks away.
Bolding mine.
I generally agree with your point here but I wonder how true the bolded parts are.
You’re spot-on that the delegates’ “pledge” is to the voters; they promise they’ll vote their first ballot the way the popular vote in their state told them to (in accordance with whatever the state-level rules are, e.g. winner take all, proportional, etc.).
After that IMO the delegates owe exactly nothing to exactly everybody. The delegates are party stalwarts who’re getting the trip to the big show as a reward for loyal and fervent service. As such, each of them is likely to have a strongly held view about which candidate they individually support(ed), and which one, based on the current national state of play, they independently think would be tactically best now.
IOW, they may be pledged to Cruz since he won their state, but have been a campaign-long booster for Kasich as their idea of the ideal President. Who now believes that Rubio is the least-bad alternative with the best chance to beat Hillary the Horrid.
IMO if the first ballot is inconclusive, our delegate could do almost anything in the second ballot. To be sure the state leadership will try to influence them. But I don’t think the pledged candidate (Cruz in my example) has any particular pull over the delegates. Particulary for the 49 states’ (plus the several non-state “states’” mentioned above) wherein the pledged candidate doesn’t live/represent. IOW, Jeb! will have some residual pull in FL after the 2016 RNC; he won’t have spit anywhere else. His efforts to steer his pledged delegates from some other state will be ineffective.
If you have solid rules-based info to contradict this opinion, I’m glad to learn of it.
I’ll eat crow.
And if if doesn’t happen…?
The 40b rule brings up an interesting related question. Given the wide open nature of this years contest there might be a decent minority of delegates that can’t vote for the person they are pledged to since their candidate isn’t on the convention ballot.
I don’t know how it works in Florida, but in Illinois each primary candidate for President submits his own slate of delegates. The voters cast two votes: One for the “beauty contest” where they pick a candidate and a second vote for the delegates who are pledged to the candidate. A voter could, theoretically, vote for Jeb! and then select the Donald’s delegates to go to the convention.
There is no logical reason for a candidate to submit the names of anyone but loyal supporters in his delegate slate. Generally, you need a local organization and campaign chairman who does the hard work of putting together the slate.
Yes, of course they will begin to think more strategically as time goes on, but they are delegates because they supported the candidate they are pledged to, so they start out wanting that candidate to win. On the second round of voting, they are likely to stick with him/her. As voting goes on, they may waver.
The voters vote for a candidate, and then that determines whose delegates are elected. The delegates are different depending on the candidate - each has a slate, and a certain number of that slate are elected. So they are not only pledged to a candidate by virtue of the vote, they were supporters of that candidate from the beginning, and therefore are likely to remain so.
It won’t prove anything, sorry. We are saying only that it could happen, not that it necessarily will. Your position is much more sweeping, and gets utterly disproven by one counterexample. That’s just the nature of the extreme position you took, which was presumably free and voluntary, much like the vote on the second ballot. 
Is this a majority of the vote cast in the primary or a majority of the state’s delegates? I ask because many of the later Republican primaries are winner take all. So I suspect the leading candidate will certainly have a majority of delegates in at least 8 states.
Good point and I think it probably is the delegates.
Extremely courageous of you. And a position I predicted.
What do you mean “if”? You’re absolutely certain it won’t happen. You said so.
What is wrong with you?
Nobody said it was going to happen, just that the chances are greater than zero. You decided to come in here and declare that it can’t possibly happen and nobody can have an opinion to the contrary because you say so.