If you think next week's Republican National Convention is going to be a coronation of Donald Trump as the party nominee, you haven't heard the latest from the "Never Trump" folks.
They have started a campaign which would free up delegates from being forced to vote for Trump on the first ballot — as the rules currently require — and allow them instead to 'vote their conscience,' Which could turn the convention into chaos.
The final decision will be made by the 112 members of the rules committee, made up of two delegates from each state, including Janet Fogarty of Scituate, Massachusetts, who says she's been bombarded this week by emails and phone calls from all over the country.
"They are long, passionate emails saying please vote to unbind the delegates," Fogarty said. "We cannot have Trump as our nominee. Others say they want to keep Trump because he is the one Republicans voted for."
Fogarty says she thinks the convention will turn into a floor fight.
It's a longshot, but Fogarty says that the movement, being led by a Colorado delegate, has the 25 percent of rules committee members needed to launch a floor fight — but Fogarty would not be one of the defectors. She says she will stick with Trump.
A key problem for the "Free the delegates" campaign is that they are so far, not unified behind any alternative to Trump. Some suggest Paul Ryan, others Ted Cruz, still others Mitt Romney.
Massachusetts
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Fogarty says she was always a loyalist to Romney and that this was the scenario she had always dreamed of, hoping that Romney would come in as the White Knight at the end of the convention and become the candidate.
Fogarty thinks Romney would've had the best chance of beating trump in the floor fight, until Romney came out in March on national television and publicly bashed Trump.
Fogarty says Romney lost a lot of support that day outing, "Everyone who I knew all along who said, we need Romney, we need Romney, just turned on him."
Fogarty is heading out to Cleveland on Wednesday when the rules committee meets for the first time.
