Now we know the Republicans are headed toward a replay of Chicago 1968. Paul Manafort, Donald Trump's hired-too-late convention manager, has just accused Rafael Cruz, Jr. of employing "Gestapo tactics" — stealing delegates away from The Donald in states that he's won.
Trump's latest delegate snafus happened just yesterday in Colorado and South Carolina, with another one looming in Indiana, a state that hasn't even gone to the polls yet. The Cruz operation is working the delegate selection system like big-time pros — while Trump has been caught flat-footed, with no organization and, apparently, no clue until now that this kind of thing could happen.
Hence the frantic hiring of Manafort, who not only was Jerry Ford's delegate hunter at the GOP's last contested convention in 1976, but probably also old enough to recall the origin of the term he just used against Cruz. (As is Trump, by the way.)
Of course, when Abe Ribicoff said it, he was referring to what was happening in the streets, which a national commission later labeled a police riot. This summer in Cleveland, though, it'll be Trump supporters who'll be on the rampage, not the cops. (But come to think of it, Trump's penchant for hurling insults kinda reminds us — and not fondly — of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley's caught-on-camera reaction to Ribicoff's speech.)
Depending on how the next three months unfold — and even though we've avoided Republican conventions in the past — we cats have marked our calendars to, um, maybe watch. After all, it's not every day you get to see a major political party destroy itself. That would make us PURR.
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