TRUMP'S COMPLAINT – AT 8:47 A.M. ET:  I know we have Trump supporters among our very high-level readership, but frankly I'm tiring of the man.  He lowers the level of every argument he enters.  Last week, as we watched Brussels explode, as we saw our president humiliate this country and himself in Cuba and Argentina, Donald Trump was involved in a trivial debate over who insulted whose wife in the Republican nomination process.  I can't say that Ted Cruz was that much more impressive, but at least Cruz knows the issues.

A new tack by Trump is that the whole nomination process is unfair (to him), and he's promising trouble.  Lawsuits, to be specific.  It's the way the real-estate business is done in New York, but it's not usually the way we conduct a national campaign.  Rich Lowry, in the New York Post, explains just why Trump's position is weak. 

Donald Trump has made his first threat to sue over the procedures for selecting delegates to the Republican convention. It surely won’t be his last.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Ted Cruz may come out of Louisiana with as many as 10 more delegates than Trump, even though the mogul narrowly beat Cruz in the popular vote there. In a tweet, Trump pronounced it “unfair,” and worthy of litigation.

The Louisiana delegate picture isn’t evidence of anything untoward. Trump and Cruz both won 18 delegates on election night. Marco Rubio, who has since dropped out, won five, and another five are uncommitted. The Cruz campaign has done the nitty-gritty work to see that those delegates are likely Cruz supporters.

The only scandal here is that the Cruz campaign, built on grass-roots organizing muscle, knows the process and is working hard for every advantage. Trump’s plaint is a little like showing up at a Cricket match and crying foul because the opposing team knows the rules and all you know is that you swing a bat.

The Louisiana flap is a window into the intricate, state-by-state process of picking delegates to a convention in Cleveland where the allegiance of every last delegate might matter. If there is an open convention, Trump will argue that the voters should rule, not delegates no one has heard of, selected at obscure precinct, county, district and state meetings. He will, in short, declare the entire exercise of a contested convention illegitimate.

And...

Trump has thrived so far without an extensive, traditional political operation. But politics isn’t only about TV interviews and big rallies.

There’s a reason that the system also rewards candidates who can motivate and muster people to do the grass-roots activism involved in winning small victories at local meetings. This is literally getting people involved in the process, and it could take on an outsized significance in deciding the immediate future of the Republican Party.

Trump would be well-served to complain less about the rules, and learn more.

COMMENT:  Read the whole thing.  It's a good primer on convention politics.  Lowry, of course, is correct.  Conventions matter.  They're the critical components wherein delegates can step in and name a candidate if no one has a majority, based on primaries and caucuses.  That's why they hold conventions.

Abraham Lincoln came into the 1860 Republican convention well behind.  He emerged as the nominee.  The 1976 Republican convention was contested, and Ronald Reagan almost upset incumbent President Gerald Ford.  It was at the 1952 convention that Dwight Eisenhower became the GOP nominee, not before.

I'm hoping for a contested convention.  It would be a breath of fresh air, and exciting.  And the best candidate might actually emerge. 

March 29,  2016