THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

Getting nominated by your favorite political party is so much more than accumulating the necessary votes in the various primaries. First after the votes have been counted, they need to be connected to the necessary delegates who like you. And the Republican Party has set a minimum necessary to even have your name put forward. And then, in convention there are the rules and the committee that decides what those rules are.

Forget, for the moment, the big convention where the roll of the states is called, the delegates wave signs and wear funny hats, and campaign operatives buzz the floor making sure they’ve got the votes.

What matters first are 112 people who have a big say in whom the party nominates as the next president of the United States.

They’re the convention’s rules committee, two members from each state and six other jurisdictions. A week or so before the convention opens, they’ll meet to determine how things will proceed.

They can block someone from being formally considered at the convention. They can make it easier for delegates to ditch their commitments to their candidates.

“Technically, the rules committee can change anything it wants,” said Louis Pope, a veteran rules committee expert from Maryland.

Right now, the committee’s very makeup is a mystery.

Members are now being methodically chosen day by day, in state after state. They’re picked at the end of a lengthy delegate-selection process that involves meetings at middle school cafeterias, Elks lodges or Holiday Inns off interstates across America. This year, they often feature gentle, though hardly subtle, persuasion by supporters of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.

This week’s renegades will find themselves up against the same forces that will make it difficult to make big changes for the convention right away: Convention rules committee members are often party stalwarts, more concerned with electability than ideology or die-hard loyalty to a single candidate. They are often the establishment that voters have signaled this year that they dread.

That’s why, at the moment, the committee is not expected to change the controversial Rule 40b. At least not right away. That rule, adopted four years ago, requires a candidate to have majorities of delegates in eight states or jurisdictions in order to be formally nominated.

So far, only Trump and Cruz would qualify. Since they’re likely to have most of this year’s delegates, they’re unlikely to seek a change. Several Republican National Committee members are promoting alternatives, such as no threshold or returning to the five-state minimum that prevailed before 2012.

If no candidate gets a majority on the first ballot, then a majority of the delegates will be free to vote as they choose.

At this point, “the Cruz campaign doesn’t want to see any rules changed on any subject in the middle of the race,” said Lionel Rainey III, a Louisiana Cruz strategist who had run Marco Rubio’s state campaign. The U.S. senator from Florida suspended his effort last month.

Naturally Ted doesn't want any changes, but the party bosses will do what needs to be done without looking to sleazy. The Rules Committee has long been a make or break point to insure the parties get what they want.