Republicans working to dump Donald Trump believe their efforts got a big boost from the firing of Trump’s campaign manager on Monday, but their lack of organization could prove to be too little and too late.
Hours after the Trump campaign dismissed Corey Lewandowski as campaign manager, Courageous Conservatives PAC which supported Ted Cruz in the Republican primary — distributed a fundraising email seeking money, “to pressure Rules Committee members to do the right thing” and unbind delegates at the GOP convention.
Steve Lonegan, Courageous Conservatives PAC spokesman, told the Washington Examiner he believes unbinding the delegates at the convention is “doable” despite his effort’s lack of organization.
“There is no institution in place in the country to do this,” Lonegan said. “If you wanted to do this right, you’d have paid people in every state, you’d have operatives and regional directors. We have none of that and we won’t have any of that. What we’re building is an organization that can be the source of knowledge on what to do and how to do it.”
By next week at this time, Lonegan said, he hopes to name representatives of his effort in all 50 states, preferably delegates to the convention. His group is encouraging supporters to sign its petition at FREEtheGOP.com and get involved.
While Lonegan is the former New Jersey state director of Ted Cruz’s campaign, he said that Courageous Conservative PAC’s effort is not affiliated with any candidate and he has not spoken with a campaign.
Lonegan said his group already has representatives in more than half of the 50 states and insisted they would meet their goal next week. Lonegan identified Pat Brady, a former Illinois GOP chairman and John Kasich delegate, as the organization’s midwestern delegate whip. Other delegates involved in the effort include Eric Minor, a delegate from Washington state, and Regina Thomson and Kendal Unruh, delegates from Colorado.
In order for Courageous Conservatives PAC to “rock the world and change the course of history,” Lonegan said he wanted to raise $250,000. But that will be no easy task.
The convention begins in less than a month and Courageous Conservative PAC’s controversial past may lower its chances of success. Rick Tyler, a former Cruz campaign communications director, said the super PAC’s efforts to help Cruz actually hurt the Texas senator and caused the campaign to repudiate the super PAC.
Courageous Conservatives PAC fed the narrative of Cruz’s campaign as a “dirty tricks campaign,” Tyler said, because of its running Confederate Flag ads in South Carolina to boost Cruz and robocalls it made about gay marriage in Iowa that Tyler said would never have received the Cruz campaign’s blessing.
Lonegan said he does not think the super PAC’s actions — which occurred before he joined it — will have an effect on its future efforts.
“They were overwhelmingly destructive to the Cruz campaign,” Tyler said. “They were not helpful so I imagine they will be equally ineffective in this effort.”
Tyler was forced out of the Cruz campaign after promoting a video on social media that painted Marco Rubio in an unflattering light. As criticism of the Cruz campaign’s tactics grew, Tyler exited the campaign in February.
But Tyler sounded much more optimistic about the chances of the movement to dump Trump outside of the super PAC.
“I think if you began to see double digit losses to Hillary Clinton in polling over the next few weeks, I think that effort may gain momentum,” Tyler said. “If the delegates truly believe that Donald Trump will be a detriment to the entire ticket, meaning that he’s not only going to lose the White House, but he is going to precipitate the loss of House and Senate seats and then down ballot races around the country including governor’s races, then I think the move could get serious traction even among those who claim to be Trump delegates now.”
While the Courageous Conservatives PAC would not provide an exact number of how many delegates it has in its corner, Lonegan said “hundreds” of delegates were onboard without providing evidence. But he added that his focus is on swaying a majority of the GOP rules committee’s members to allow delegates to vote their conscience at the convention.
“We have to convince 56 members of the rules committee plus one to pass an amendment that says the delegates should be able to vote their conscience on every ballot,” Lonegan said. “I personally don’t see Republican delegates voting against it. … I think they have a harder time binding than we have keeping them bound.”
Whether a “conscience clause,” allowing delegates to withdraw support for Trump in Cleveland, can survive a combustible convention filled with Trump delegates remains to be seen. The clock is about to run out.
