Or Trumpy McTrumpface.
Why should the party elite be allowed to overrule the will of the party rank-and-file? Again why are they “The Party” while me and my fellow GOP nobodies are not?
Because you have no obligation to the party. If you want to have power, generally, you owe responsibilities. You are not bound to the party, you don’t have to pay dues, etc. Your power is to refuse to call yourself a Republican, refuse to donate, and refuse to vote for general election candidates. The party elite does more and therefore gets to do more.
I think of it very much like, say, a sports franchise. If you’re a fan of the Dope Drumrolls, you buy their merchandise, you go to games, you root and support. But you don’t choose who they put on the field other than indirectly.
Sure, if you want to get technical to the point of absurdity, it’s the electors who select the Presidency. However, those electors are determined in their vote by the voters. Over the history of 57 Presidential elections, there have been 157 exceptions (i.e., faithless electors) who did not follow the will of the voters, and 71 of those were because the candidate died between the popular vote and the meeting of the Electoral College.
Let’s not go to the other extreme. The voters aren’t left out of the process, but they’re not the be-all, end-all either. And if voters of a particular party don’t like that, they’re free to join a different one, which will do exactly the same thing.
I think the point about electors is less about faithless electors and more about demographics and allocation. It’s not as simple as an equation saying “1 million voters for 1 elector.” Furthermore, the margin of win on each delegate doesn’t really matter. It definitely changes the strategy for victory.
In the context of the RNC and Trump, the key issue is that most delegates have flexibility, which is very useful in lots of legitimate circumstances, like delegates from Kasich-leaning states being able to support Cruz instead. It does seem a little questionable to use the flexibility to keep out Trump… but rules are rules. As long as Trump knew the rules going in (or could have known the rules, if he’d bothered to), it’s hardly fair to complain.
Not that any of this is much of an issue after Cruz left the race.