What should the Republican Party do about Trump? That is the question on the minds of many as we go into the final round of primaries and caucuses—a round in which Trump could get the most votes, the most delegates and perhaps even lock up the nomination.

But in the past few weeks, the anti-Trump forces have been getting their act together—somewhat belatedly—and the political class is salivating over the fact that there could be a brokered convention for the first time in more than half a century.

How would that happen? And who are the brokers?

Following is a comprehensive list of the possibilities. I’ll be the first to admit that I have no idea what the probabilities are that each will occur.

1. Trump wins a majority of delegates and goes on to win on a first ballot.

Once he amasses the necessary delegates, Trump might pivot to the general election and turn into a thoughtful, serious person who stops insulting people and stops making ridiculous statements. He cleans up his act just enough to hand him a tepid endorsement from the rest of the party.

The last debate was noteworthy for the way in which Trump seemed to have reined himself in, refraining from the gratuitous insults that were his previous stock in trade. All in all, he seemed to be trying to be more presidential and less controversial.

However, after the debate, he quickly reverted to form by telling people that there would be “riots in the street” if he didn’t get the nomination. So the “acting-like-a-president” gambit doesn’t seem like something he can sustain.

2. Trump wins a majority of delegates and goes on to win on a first ballot, but the congressional wing of the party goes it alone.

In this scenario, Trump gets a majority of delegates and wins the nomination, but the rest of the Republican Party decides to just give up on the presidency this time around.

Led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, the congressional leadership separates itself from Trump and gives a backhanded endorsement to Hillary Clinton by campaigning on the need to have a solid Republican Congress in order to stop what they consider President-elect Clinton’s worst ideas.

3. Trump wins enough delegates to win on a first ballot, but he does not have enough friends at the grass-roots level of the Republican Party to elect delegates who are loyal to him.

Already, conservatives like Roger Stone are warning Trump to beware of “Trojan horse delegates.” The draft rules for the Republican National Convention stipulate that delegates have to vote for the person who won their state, or at least cast their votes proportionally. But these rules can be changed by a vote of the convention rules committee, which is different from the Republican National Committee’s rules committee.

If the convention rules committee changes the rules and all convention delegates vote to agree with them, they could open the door to defections from Trump. Then Trump fails to get a majority on the first ballot, Cruz and Kasich make a deal, and Cruz most likely wins the presidential nomination on the second ballot, with Kasich becoming the vice presidential nominee.

4. The outside compromise.

This is a variation of option No. 3, except that the convention does not turn to Cruz or Kasich and instead seeks an outside compromise candidate like Speaker Paul Ryan to become their standard-bearer.

5. Trump goes into the convention with a plurality but not a majority of delegates.

This guarantees a second ballot even without his opponents having to win votes on rule changes. In this scenario, there is no test vote to determine which other candidate might have the strength to put together a majority, so expect either a long period of negotiations between the first and second ballots or more than two ballots.

If none of the candidates who have delegates in the hall can win on a second ballot, the convention could well turn to an outside candidate.

For scenarios Nos. 3, 4 and 5 to unfold with a modicum of decorum, there need to be “brokers,” so called because they in fact “broker” the deal or conduct the negotiations. But the kind of brokers that were standard in old-fashioned conventions don’t exist anymore.

There used to be powerful elected or party leaders who could literally tell the delegates from their state what to do because they had handpicked them. The modern system doesn’t allow power brokers to handpick delegates anymore—they are elected in state party caucuses, conventions and, executive committees in the spring. But that doesn’t mean that a contested convention would be devoid of brokers.

snip

http://www.newsweek.com/how-stop-trump-count-ways-439569

What isn't being discussed, and seems obvious to me at least, is that if the elites deny Trump the nomination, they're certainly NOT going to hand it to Ted Cruz.

Cruz is living an illusion if he think a brokered convention will favor him.

Rule 40b: here's another angle on this brokered convention fiasco:

GOP “rule 40b” makes brokered convention impossible, only Trump qualifies to be nominee.

The rule is now haunting the GOP establishment as they watch their party apparatus getting dominated by Trump, and Trump beating them with their own rules to prevent such an occurrence from happening.
In Layman’s terms:
The Rule prevents a candidate who does not meet a qualifying threshold (which only Trump has reached) from being considered on the Second Ballot.
In short: The establishment cannot stop Trump. It’s over.

Trump even would win New York against Clinton according to analysts, something Cruz, Romney, Ryan, or Kasich have no hope of doing (LINK)
Even John Boehner admits this. (LINK)

Breitbart:
Technically, most of the analysts citing Rule 40 are referring to the current version of Rule 40(b), which sets a certain minimum threshold for candidates at the Republican National Convention. According to this rule, candidates must arrive at the convention with a majority of the delegates from eight states or territories, or else they are disqualified from the first round. In most elections, this is a mere formality because the clear winner of the nomination is well-known before the convention begins, making the convention an extended infomercial for the party and its nominee.
Of course, there is good reason to suspect the Republican convention will be rather more exciting this year. Gidley noted there is apprehension among front-runner Donald Trump’s supporters that the GOP Establishment will use some “shenanigans” to “steal” the nomination from him at the convention. Among those shenanigans could be changing Rule 40 to bring candidates who don’t meet the established minimum threshold into the game.
There are two ghosts from the 2012 election haunting the Shakespearean drama of the 2016 primary, and Gidley invoked them both in a single breath: Ron Paul and Mitt Romney.
“This is actually called the ‘Ron Paul Rule.’ The Romney people put this in place,” Gidley explained. “The Establishment hurt Ron Paul, but I think this Establishment rule will actually help Donald Trump.”

Rule 40 “was an effort to stop the Ron Paul faction from gaining traction at the convention,” Gidley recalled. “And now we see the fruits of that rule, which was designed to stop Ron Paul, could effectively stop the Establishment.”

“The second part of the rule is, you can’t even count votes for anybody else who doesn’t meet that threshold,” he pointed out.
“So people can try to submit votes for other people — like Kasich, or like Rubio, or like Romney — but if you haven’t won a majority of the delegates in eight states, you can’t be on any ballot, at any time. First, second, third, fourth, fifth — it doesn’t matter.”

It has been suggested that the Rules Committee will simply change Rule 40 to arrange whatever outcome is necessary to block Trump, but Gidley was skeptical of this idea. Normally, a presumptive candidate who has reached the “magic number” of bound delegates needed to secure the nomination can control the rules.

If Trump is held below that 1,237-delegate threshold this year, the Rules Committee could theoretically rewrite the rules to hurt him, but Gidley anticipated sheer chaos if such tactics were employed.

http://prntly.com/blog/breaking-gop-rule...-to-be-nominee/

More:

Desperate GOP establishment turns to Ted Cruz

By Niall Stanage - 03/23/16

The Republican establishment is sending in the cavalry for Ted Cruz, the latest unexpected twist in a presidential race that has defied all expectations.

Many prominent members of the GOP establishment intensely dislike Cruz. But they now acknowledge that he is the best option — perhaps the only option — to deny Donald Trump their party’s nomination.

big snip

http://thehill.com/homenews/presidential...rns-to-ted-cruz

Note: they are not saying they are turning to Ted Cruz so that he can get the nomination. It's so very odd! they are turning to Cruz to "deny Donald Trump the party's nomination."

Quote: Sanguine wrote in post #4

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The majority of people who have voted in republican primaries have voted for someone other than ...._______insert any name here_________.

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