Paul Singer

USA TODAY

The only way John Kasich can become the Republican nominee is if you believe — which he apparently does — that the rules of the Republican convention are not really relevant.

The rules adopted at the 2012 convention would not offer a path for Kasich to become the nominee. The rules, pushed through by 2012 standard-bearer Mitt Romney, set a minimum threshold that a candidate would have to have the support of a majority of delegates from at least eight states in order to be nominated for president. Kasich, winner of only the Ohio primary, would not meet that standard.

While Kasich has collected 143 delegates, the convention rules state that the convention chairman disregard any votes cast by delegates for candidates who did not qualify for the nomination. And there are no provisions to add new names into nomination.

The 2012 convention rules do not apply to the 2016 convention; the convention rules committee will set the rules for the 2016 convention days before the Republicans convene in Cleveland in July. But that committee will be made up of delegates elected through this year's primary process, and Morton Blackwell, a Republican National Committee member from Virginia, said "a clear majority of the delegates will be supporting Cruz or Trump" and would have no incentive to back rules changes that would help Kasich.

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Blackwell has tried and failed twice to get the 2012 rules overturned by the RNC's standing rules committee — which will offer draft rules to the convention rules committee — and the issue is likely to arise again at the RNC spring meeting in Florida beginning April 22. RNC chairman Reince Preibus "controls a big majority of the votes" on the standing committee, Blackwell said, and could likely get whatever rules changes he wants, but the convention committee would still have to endorse them.

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"Any amendments that come out of the Spring meetings are purely a suggestion. The 2016 Convention Rules Committee will create the rules for this year’s convention," said RNC spokeswoman Lindsay Walters.

But Kasich appears to be banking on the notion that the convention rules don't actually matter much.

The Ohio governor told CNN Monday, "I think the rules will be open, and even if they're not, I'm still going to go in there with significant delegates ... I don't think that people are going to want a closed convention. I think they're going to want to give the delegates freedom to make good choices."

If no candidate reaches the necessary 1,237 votes on the first ballot, Kasich argues that he will be able to make the case to the convention that he is the best candidate to win the White House.

Tom Rath, a GOP political operative who is serving as senior national adviser to Kasich's campaign, said "the immutable rule of this convention is that if a candidate gets 1,237 votes they are the nominee whether or not they are in nomination." Rath said that even if the convention chairman is not tallying Kasich votes, the television networks will be keeping track and it will be clear that Kasich's support is growing with each passing ballot.

Rath even suggested that House Speaker Paul Ryan, acting as convention chairman, could simply adopt a motion to add Kasich to the ballot, which would be approved if there were sufficient support from the delegates.

But Ryan, even as he took himself out of the running for the GOP nomination Tuesday, seemed to warn that the rules are not so flexible. "As chairman of the Republican convention, my job is to ensure that there’s integrity in the process," Ryan said, "that the rules are followed by the book."