Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/657691
GregStevens,Publisher Chip Thompson, Editor EDITORIALBOARD How to have your say: Letters must be signed and provide the writer's home street address and home phone number. Anonymous letters, open letters to others, pen names and petition-style letters will not be allowed. Letters should be typed and no more than two double-spaced pages or 500words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section will be published. Email: editor@ redbluffdailynews.com Fax: 530-527-9251 Mail to: P.O. Box 220, 545 Diamond Ave., Red Bluff, CA 96080 Facebook: Leave comments at FACEBOOK.COM/ RBDAILYNEWS Twitter: Follow and send tweets to @REDBLUFFNEWS By Michael Reagan TheRepublicanPartyes- tablishment wants to dump Trump. Jeb, Marco and Carly wanted to dump Trump. Ted and John still hope to dump Trump. So does Mitt. Everyone in the GOP is on the same anti-Trump page. They all want to dump him — and they'll use every trick play in the primary book to do it. So why is everyone in the party so angry about the way the primary process is going? This is the process. It's really pretty simple. If you want to be the Repub- lican Party's presidential can- didate for 2016, you have to reach 1,237 delegates to win the nomination. It's not who gets close to 1,237 delegates. It's who gets that number or more. That's the way the system works. In the Super Bowl, we don't say to a team that if you get to the five-yard line you get six points. Or if your field goal goes just a little bit wide, you get three points. You have to cross the goal line and get into the end zone. You've got to split the uprights. Those are the rules. Whether you're Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, John Ka- sich or a candidate-to-be- named-later at a contested convention, if you want to win the game you have to get the necessary number of del- egates. What's going on now in the GOP primary is perfectly nor- mal. Cruz and Kasich are both trying to do whatever they can to stop Trump. The people calling for Ka- sich to drop out so Cruz can go head-to-head against Trump are wrong. What makes them believe all of Kasich's voters will move over to Cruz? What Kasich said the other day is absolutely true. If he had dropped out before Ohio, Trump would have won that state's 66 delegates and be even closer to reaching 1,237. So what if Kasich can't pos- sibly win on the first ballot? It's good that he is still run- ning. He's the last sitting gover- nor left in the race. We also have a first-term senator and a billionaire celebrity business- man who's never been elected to anything. What's wrong with that trio? If there's a contested con- vention, Republicans get to choose one of them or maybe someone else. Trust me, the struggle to deny Trump the nomination on the first ballot is not any- thing to be upset about. It's part of the process. In 1976 what do you think we Reagans were trying to do at the Republican convention? We were trying to prevent President Ford from winning the nomination on the first ballot by busting up the New York delegation. We were also trying to bust up the Pennsylvania delega- tion. That's why my father named liberal Sen. Richard Schweicker of Pennsylvania his VP choice before the con- vention started. Our plans didn't work. We lost. I was there, so I know how that felt. But by losing we Reagan Republicans actually won in the long run. If my father had become president in 1976, he would not have been able to do what he did in the 1980s to defeat the Soviet Union without fir- ing a shot. Winning the presidential primary is always a rough and tough process. Some Repub- licans want you to win and some don't want you to win. The most important thing is, at the end of the day you're supposed to gather around the party's choice — whoever it is — and move forward. Democrats do that well. Re- publicans don't. They keep looking for reasons not to sup- port their nominee. If evangelicals and conser- vatives had supported and voted for Mitt Romney in 2012, instead of staying home out of spite because their fa- vorite guy didn't win the nom- ination, the Republican Party wouldn't have a Trump prob- lem today. The GOP establishment, the Tea Party crowd, the evangelicals and the libertar- ians will need to unite and work hard this fall if they hope to prevent another Pres- ident Clinton. Even if they fail to dump Trump. MichaelReaganisthesonof President Ronald Reagan, a political consultant, and the author of "The New Reagan Revolution" (St. Martin's Press). Send comments to Reagan@caglecartoons.com. Follow @reaganworld on Twitter. Commentary Don'tdump on the primary process just yet Cartoonist's take Last week the DN published an article titled "Public in- vited to pray concerning elec- tion," and contin- ued, "Evangelist Franklin Gra- ham will bring 'Decision Amer- ica' Tour 2016 to the State Capi- tal West Steps at noon Thursday, to pray for the USA and the important election coming up this year." The arti- cle urges concerned folks to get up a car pool and attend this event. However, those unable to go may get nearly the same re- sults by going to the First Bap- tist Church in Corning which will be open to pray at noon. To a non-believer, this innoc- uous article illustrates the faith that many have in the power of prayer. It also suggests that not only that this year's elec- tion will be of great import, but that combined prayer will over- come the rhetoric of those run- ning for the highest office in the land. If The Rev. Graham is successful, I am all for it. It is not that I think prayer is effec- tive, but that any concentrated effort by those registered to vote, will cause the candidacy of Donald Trump to go down in flames. While it is true the arti- cle does not state whom to pray for…or whom to pray against, it has to be assumed that every sane Christian will eventually vote against the big (but small handed) buffoon. That goes without saying, does it not? ••• Speaking of the Daily News, we welcome it once again to a downtown location in our fair city. In my day, it was located on the alley on the north side of Walnut between Main and Rio. Across from it to the east was Moore's Blacksmith Shop, and I don't know which was the grim- iest, Moore's or the back room of the DN, which harbored the linotype machines that some- how produced a black lead res- idue that permeated the sur- roundings. In one corner of the room were wide benches at- tached to the wall on which the "paper boys" used to fold their allotted supply of the daily newspaper, and then, in a bag slung over our bike's handle bars, we would pedal our ap- pointed rounds spreading joy of births and progress versus the heartache of deaths or foreclo- sure. The bitter and the sweet. One thing about the newspaper; It is a chronicler of our times. It may have been usurped in some respects by the Internet, but it is still a force to be reck- oned with. The printed word becomes over that of a news reader on the telly. ••• We were out of town Tuesday, and returned home to play back a short message on our answer- ing machine from Gary Mar- tin, who reported that his fa- ther, Dr. Bill Martin, had a seri- ous stroke. In next Wednesday's Passing Parade, I will write more about this former local physician, so well known and so very popular great guy. Such news certainly puts all things in perspective. ••• I note there are two women running for County Supervi- sor: Sandra Bruce and Kathleen Carlson. This is a good oppor- tunity to vote them into office and upset the "good ol' boy" re- gime, which has voted in con- cert for so many years. Super- visors Carlson should no longer be the Lone Rangerette on the board. ••• What do you make of this statement? "You are liable someday to have a President su- premely lacking in the quali- ties of statesman, and one who is egotistic, impulsive, of imma- ture judgment, a mere glutton of the limelight, ready to barter away prosperity and even his country's freedom for momen- tary popular applause. Instead of a mighty nation, great in her physical strength and greater in her moral qualities, you may have a strutting, confiscating, shrieking, meddling America." To whom is the author address- ing this searing indictment? D. Trump? No, Theodore Roosevelt. It was written by Samuel W. Mc- Call, Republican Congressman from Massachusetts over a hun- dred years ago. I discovered it in the third and final edition of Mark Twain's autobiography, a state- ment that Twain thought accu- rate enough be included in his final work. What does it tell us? It indi- cates that the American peo- ple have, for many years, always been suspect of their leaders, and often can't wait to replace them for someone untested who might turn out to be a bet- ter bet. In the above example, sur- prisingly, the fellow being dumped upon is the Rough Rider hero of San Juan Hill. The description, however, seems more likely to fit today's leading Republican Presidential contender. ••• I confess to disparaging D. Trump to the extent I may re- peat myself. But if I did, the words of Joe Klein in TIME re- quire repeating: "Trump's has been the perfect campaign for television. He is outrageous which is more fun than sub- stance or sobriety. Outrage brings more ratings, the one true currency in the desperately competitive world of broadcast news. Another primal truth that Trump has figured out is that the qualities the Great American Audience now values most are the least presidential." ••• More questions for the me- dia's popular spiritual advisor, Dr. Laura. My uncle has a farm. He vio- lates Leviticus 19:19 by planting two different kinds of crops in the same field as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread — cotton and polyester blend. He also tends to curse a lot. Is it necessary to get the whole town together to stone them? Levit- icus 24: 10-16, or can we just burn them to death in a private family affair, like we do with people who sleep with their in- laws — Leviticus 20:14. ••• "When I was a kid I had no watch. I used to tell time by my violin. I used to practice in the middle of the night and the neighbor would yell, 'Fine time to practice the violin, three o'clock in the morning.'" Henny Youngman. Robert Minch is a lifelong resident of Red Bluff, former columnist for the Corning Daily Observer and Meat Industry magazine and author of the "The Knocking Pen." He can be reached at rminchandmurray@hotmail. com. I say Will prayer overcome outrageous rhetoric? Sounding off A look at what readers are saying in comments on our website and on social media. Where is (sic) the Mayor and Council? They should of (sic) been there. Larry Stevens: On the swearing in of a new police officer in Red Bluff Spent many times hunting Easter eggs with Uncle Fay and the Kiwanis Yvonne Eskridge Weems: On coverage of the Red Bluff Kiwanis Easter Egg Hunt Saturday If evangelicals and conservatives had supported and voted for Mitt Romney in 2012, instead of staying home out of spite because their favorite guy didn't win the nomination, the Republican Party wouldn't have a Trump problem today. StateandNational Assemblyman James Galla- gher, 2060 Talbert Drive, Ste. 110, Chico 95928, 530 895-4217, http://ad03.asmrc.org/ Senator Jim Nielsen, 2634 Forest Ave., Ste. 110, Chico 95928, 530 879-7424, senator. nielsen@senate.ca.gov Governor Jerry Brown, State Capital Building, Sacramento 95814, 916 445-2841, fax 916 558-3160, governor@governor. ca.gov U.S. Representative Doug La- Malfa, 507 Cannon House Of- fice Building, Washington D.C. 20515, 202 225-3076 U.S. Senator Dianne Fein- stein, One Post St., Ste. 2450, San Francisco 94104, 415 393- 0707, fax 415 393-0710 U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, 1700 Montgomery St., San Fran- cisco 94111, 510 286-8537, fax 202 224-0454 Local Tehama County Supervisors, 527-4655 District 1, Steve Chamblin, Ext. 3015 District 2, Candy Carlson, Ext. 3014 District 3, Dennis Garton, Ext. 3017 District 4, Bob Williams, Ext. 3018 District 5, Burt Bundy, Ext. 3016 Red Bluff City Manager, Rich- ard Crabtree, 527-2605, Ext. 3061 Corning City Manager, Kris- tina Miller, 824-7033 Your officials Robert Minch OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Friday, March 25, 2016 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A6