Gretchen's Take: Who will work the delegate system better?
Why a candidate still needs to know how to be a politician
Time for some delegate talk 101. Remember this first, that almost all delegates will go to the GOP convention in July bound to a particular candidate—whomever won their state, or if it was doled out proportionally to various candidates. However, if the process continues to the second or third ballot, all of those delegates will be free agents. Some states already have free agents. Pennsylvania and Colorado coming up this weekend. So in those states and everywhere else, the big question is, who will work the system better? Ted Cruz appears to already be out front, schmoozing delegates in Louisiana, Arizona, and Tennessee, where the primaries have already happened. He’s saying, hey even if you have to vote for Trump on the first ballot—promise me you’ll vote for me on the second or third count. Nothing wrong with that. Completely legal. It’s why you’re suddenly seeing Trump trying to get back into the delegates wooing game. It also proves more than anything else, that in the year of the political outsider, why a candidate, at least at this point, still needs to know how to be a politician.
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