Trump to be dumped from prez run?

WASHINGTON: Republican powerbrokers in the US are starting to lay the ground for what is termed a “brokered convention” to deny maverick billionaire Donald Trump nomination for the presidential race if it looks like he is sweeping through the party primaries.
It means the party bosses want to shut him out of the process even he has legitimate grassroots support in the party, which polls now show he does.
In fact, the support has solidified in recent days with hardline white working-class voters backing Trump in spite of, or because of, his proposal to impose a moratorium on Muslims entering the US.
Traditionally, the presidential nominating convention, held separately by both major parties three to four months before Election Day, is a mere formality. It is almost like ceremonially anointing as party nominee for the presidential race the candidate who is deemed to have won the primaries and caucuses, itself an imprecise exercise to determine inner-party support. The results are expressed through delegates who vote in the party convention.
But with Trump racing past a dozen GOP stalwarts, party veterans have been putting their heads together to prevent a man who is seen as an interloper from storming victorious into the convention, which is scheduled in Cleveland in July 18-21.
They are now talking of a “brokered convention,” a complicated exercise where the party decides there is no clear winner in the primaries and “releases” delegates who have been mandated to vote candidates the grassroots voter has preferred. Delegates are then allowed to switch allegiance and vote for another candidate, unusually dictated by the party bosses. There hasn’t been a brokered convention in more than half century in either party. The last time either party came close to a brokered convention was when Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton duked it out for the party nomination in 2008.
Obama clearly had the grassroots support and was deemed to have won the primaries, but for a brief while, Hillary supporters toyed with upstaging him at the convention by persuading delegates to vote against grassroots wishes.
Wiser counsel prevailed and Hillary conceded a few weeks before the convention, allowing Obama to win the nomination “unanimously.”
Both parties like to wrap up this process at least three months before Election Day so that they project an image of unity, wounds from inner party scraps heal quickly, and the ‘’unanimous’’ choice candidate gets the momentum to campaign.
If Trump continues to lead and digs his heels in, and party bosses fail to relent, there will be plenty of song and dance in Cleveland, famous among other things for its Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.