Given how globalized the world is, sometimes defending the U.S. means doing so on foreign soil. I would much rather fight there than here.

 This has been the excuse of the elites for 50+ years now.  Go out into the world, gin up a war "to defend freedom at home" or to "spread democracy" and the real winners are the industrial military companies who get awarded mega contracts to support the war effort.   President Eisenhower warned us of this as he was leaving office and it's come true, over and over.

So in other words, (I'm starting to like that debate style) You are saying that CNN, CNBC, FOX, MSNBC etc are the President's employer.

If the debates were actually methods of extracting real information, rather than ratings wars with 'gotcha questions", I might agree with you.  But your opposition to Trump skipping the debate is solely based on your dislike of Trump.

Bingo!

If the positions were switched, and Cruz was the front runner and Trump had been eliminated, and the Trump campaign asked for more debates we would be hearing an entirely different tune.

Playing word games and semantics.

 Does anyone here actually believe the delegates appoint themselves to go to a convention?  Does anyone here believe a person wakes up one morning and says "Hey, I' think I'll go to Cleveland this summer and be a RNC delegate!"

 To be a delegate you must be in the party.  To be in the party and work within the party you must get in with the right people.  Show up at a party meeting one day and tell the leadership "I'm here to be a delegate at the next convention!" will get you a lot of blank stares.

 The leadership picks people to be delegates.  It's partisan and if you don't play by the leadership rules or appease the right people, you ain't playing.

 Please try to tell me that the various state RNC committees don't play favorites and don't pick people based upon their likes and dislikes, and if you do, provide evidence. (one exception is some states do put delegates on the vote during primaries, just not who the delegate actually supports)

 If someone is a delegate and goes to the convention more than likely they will have their leadership from whatever state giving them direction.  Don't listen and do it your way?  Don't expect to ever be a delegate again much less any position within your state party.  Go along to get along or look elsewhere.

 So please don't sit here and tell me how the delegates won't change rules or will and won't do this or that.  And don't be so ignorant to say the RNC leadership doesn't have any say in the rules or how they are made. 

 This ain't my first rodeo and having been involved in Republican politics on a state level previously it goes without saying the party leadership calls all of the shots, period. Rogues need not apply.

Hits nail directly on the head....  The precedence this will set turns the $20T in Federal debt into something much, much larger.

And "conservative" Paul Ryan is eager to work with BHO to help him achieve this.

Ryan is no more than Boehner V 2.0

I see Colorado as the straw that broke the camels back.  Disenfranchising up to a million voters while the party bosses make their choice sends a bad message regardless of who the candidates are.

There is going to be considerable blow back from this event and not good for the GOP/RNC.

http://thefederalist.com/2016/03/29/why-i-support-donald-trump/

Since I consider myself a traditional conservative, many friends of mine, on both the Right and the Left, are puzzled by my unwavering support for Donald Trump.

Their bewilderment is understandable. Trump is often rude and obnoxious. His demeanor can be arrogant and dismissive. At times, he comports himself as reckless and willing to lash out prematurely, prior to fully understanding all of the facts at hand. To put it simply, he is a “wrecking ball.”

Furthermore, Trump isn’t even a pure conservative in terms of policy; he is a populist. His statements over the years regarding such areas as limited government, religious liberty, states’ rights, and abortion have been inconsistent at best, and in some cases, have steered firmly to the left.

Still, given all of this baggage, I have my feet planted firmly in Camp Trump. But why? How can a principled, pragmatic, deliberate conservative be drawn to such a candidate? It is because I believe conservatism doesn’t stand a chance in this country without first delivering a very heavy dose of populism.

My grandmother must be voting democrat....she's been long dead.

10 times Lindsey Graham criticized Ted Cruz
By ELIZA COLLINS 03/17/16 05:16 PM EDT

Lindsey Graham may have thrown his support behind Ted Cruz Thursday, but he hasn't always had such kind words about the Texas senator. Graham — who is well known for his colorful statements — once said that Cruz was so hated in Congress that if someone murdered him, they’d get away with it.

Here are 10 times the South Carolina senator — and former presidential candidate — bashed the same guy he’ll be fundraising for Monday:

1. "If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody could convict you," Graham said, referencing Cruz’s unpopularity with his colleagues, at the Washington Press Club Foundation's 72nd Congressional Dinner.

2. “It’s like being shot or poisoned,” Graham told reporters at a press conference in January when asked who he preferred between Donald Trump and Cruz. “What does it really matter?”

3. At the same news conference, Graham said that “when it comes to Sen. Cruz, he's exhibited behavior in his time in the Senate that make it impossible for me to believe that he could bring this country together.”

4. In January, Graham said that Cruz’s campaign strategy played into fears, according to CNN. "Vote for me, everybody else is an idiot,” Graham said, referencing Cruz's style of outreach. "You know, this kind of very dark view of America."

5. Graham gave a speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition in December where he said that Cruz’s stances on abortion exceptions will doom the party. “If the nominee of the Republican Party will not allow for an exception for rape and incest, they will not win,” Graham said. “Ted Cruz doesn’t have an exception for rape or incest.”

“It will be about rape. … It will be about the nominee of the Republican Party telling a woman who’s been raped, 'You’ve got to carry the child of the rapist,'” he continued. “Good luck with that.”

6. “I’m running to be the president of the United States. And a certain amount of honesty comes with that,” Graham said in an interview with POLITICO in September. “Shutting down the government, I think it hurts our overall cause and I don't mind telling people that. If I’m going to be a good nominee and a good president, I’ve got to tell you what I believe.”

“I’m not trying to do something to get my numbers up or to raise money. I’m trying to advance the cause,” he said, hitting Cruz for his maneuverings that led to the 2013 government shutdown over Republicans' opposition to Obamacare.

7. CNN’s Wolf Blitzer in February asked Graham if he had confidence in Cruz being a commander-and-chief. "I think he’s been just as wrong as Obama, if not worse," Graham declared.

8. "I'm gonna support the Republican nominee," Graham said during the same CNN interview. But what if it is Trump or Cruz? "I'm gonna buy a ticket on the Titanic."

9. And Graham continued the anti-Cruz tirade to Blitzer: "Ted Cruz at his core is an opportunist when it comes to his political career. He has an ideological bent that won't sell with the American people. And when it came time to say what Ted Cruz has done in the Senate, what he's done is run down other Republicans. He hasn't solved any problem."

10. In an interview with MSNBC’s Morning Joe in early February, Graham said a Cruz candidacy would mean the Democrats would “cream” his party in a general election. He gave Cruz’s chances against any Democrat “one-in-10.”

“The problem we have as Republicans is that we’re losing the largest and fastest growing demographic, Hispanics, and when you ask them after 2012 why they don’t like the Republican party, it’s the immigration issue and the way we’ve handled it. So Ted was for legalization no matter what he tells you, and now he says he wasn’t,” Graham said. "He’s going further right on immigration.”

“I think his position on immigration is completely out-of-sync what where the party needs to be, and he will get creamed,” Graham said.

Nick Gass contributed to this report.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-gop-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/03/10-times-graham-criticized-cruz-220939