For those who missed the original, yet rather pathetic and sad, story: the n-dimensional geniuses over at Team Trump HQ apparently only found out that the Louisiana GOP had – perfectly straightforwardly* – elected Cruz LA delegates to the national RNC convention committees when they read about it in the Wall Street Journal. Naturally, Donald Trump responded to this in the only way that he knows how; by threatening a lawsuit. …And now his team is busily trying to explain that, no, it’s not going to be a lawsuit. They’re just going to whine at the RNC (and I wish them joy of the prospect).

The reason for that? Because a candidate’s ego should never write checks that his campaign can’t cash. In this particular case, it’s an internal matter within a political party, and the courts do not want to be involved. Particularly when there is no actual basis for a lawsuit. The process was known ahead of time, everybody signed up to follow the process, and one candidate incompetently didn’t make sure that his minions were following the process. And the process, in response, spanked the incompetent candidate forthwith. Moral of the story: pay attention to the process.

Actually, there’s another moral of the story: don’t be a jackass. Specifically, in this case: don’t be a plurality-ahead jackass who is pretending to be a majority-ahead jackass. I mean, I’m sure that it plays well on Twitter and everything – but out here in Big-Person Land it just makes you look like a dolt who doesn’t play well with others. There’s no reason why Trump’s team couldn’t have made a better, perfectly legitimate, deal than Ted Cruz’s team apparently did with all those Rubio and uncommitted delegates. But they did not; and the answer to that is not to sue, or whine. It’s to have Trump fire a couple of people on the staff for not doing their jobs, and then rip a few strips off of his campaign manager’s hide for not doing his.

Weird that I have to point this out, though. I mean, I thought that this guy liked to fire people. Wasn’t it his tagline, or something?

(Via @ZekeJMiller)

Moe Lane

*You will not be shocked to hear that Trump’s excuse – that none of the delegates were told about the committee elections – is being directly challenged, and on the record: “Louisiana GOP executive director Jason Doré rejected the notion that Trump had been treated unfairly. And at least several Trump delegates—and two state co-chairs—were at the meeting. “He got 40% of the votes, he got 40% of the delegates,” Doré told TIME Monday.” Not the LA GOP’s fault if some people can’t take their responsibilities seriously, folks. This is not a game.