A Tucson man could play a pivotal role at the Republican National Convention in selecting the next GOP nominee, and most people don’t even know his name.
Bruce Ash doesn’t like the term “kingmaker,” but as a Republican National Committee member and chairman of the RNC’s rules committee, he will play a big role if a GOP convention goes to a second ballot to nominate a presidential candidate.
Recent rules changes, which could be criticized in the coming months, were mostly designed to change bad or outdated rules, Ash said in a recent interview.
The committee never predicted that the 2016 election would have so many candidates, or that a reality television star would enter the race.
“It would have been hard to imagine we’d have 17 candidates for president as well as a super person like Donald Trump getting involved,” he said. “We made these changes for the first time in four (presidential campaign) cycles.”
A lot of the changes were for the good, he says, noting they reduced the number of debates and that the RNC is working closer with media groups to coordinate the televised events.
One rule hasn’t changed, however, and it is getting a lot of press this election season: Rule 40(b.), which says that a candidate must win at least eight state primaries in order to be nominated for president of the United States at the Republican convention.
Ash said he reached out to various campaigns in January to discuss changing the rule.
“All of the people I talked with, all of the major campaigns, said ‘No, do not change it,’” Ash said.
The campaigns told him that changing the rules would make it look like the “RNC was putting its thumb on the scale” in an effort to sway the election, and each campaign was confident it would win at least eight states by the time of the July convention in Cleveland.
Ash predicts two names will be put forward at the convention: Sen. Ted Cruz and businessman Donald Trump, but admits it’s just a guess.
“It is still hard to say how this is going to turn out,” he said.
The voting coming up on Tuesday, March 22, probably won’t make a big difference in the overall race, he said.
Two Western states are voting, Arizona with a presidential-preference election and Utah with a convention.
“It will be hard for either Trump or Cruz to sweep both of them,” Ash said.
Both Trump and Cruz held events in Arizona over the last few days to rally voters before Tuesday, including a Tucson rally by Trump.
Ash won’t say who he is backing in the race, but also is firm that whoever is the nominee after the convention will have his full support.
“It is going to be a mixed bag between now and June 7th when the California primary takes place,” Ash said.
Both candidates are likely to split delegates in California, he said, noting delegates there are awarded by congressional district, not a winner-take-all approach.
Ash won’t say for sure whether he expects a contested convention, but said it is important for there to be contingency plans in place.
“We haven’t had a contested convention since 1948,” he said.
He insisted it won’t make anyone at the RNC a kingmaker.
“There just aren’t any kingmakers, period. Nobody sits in a back room,” he said.
All of the campaigns involved, he said, will be consulted on a day-to-day basis if the convention is likely to have more than one ballot for the presidential nomination, and to clear up any common misconceptions.
Ash predicts the campaigns are already making contingency plans.
“They are probably already starting a first-ballot and second-ballot strategy,” he said of the three remaining GOP campaigns, those of Trump, Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
Ash’s prominent role in the party came about accidentally, he recalls.
“I think I was an independent since I first registered to vote,” he said.
Things changed about 13 years ago, when he got involved in an independent committee to help elect now-former Tucson mayor Bob Walkup, a Republican.
In 2004, Ash, who owns a property-management company in Tucson, briefly ran for a seat in the Arizona Legislature before a judicial ruling changed the boundaries of the district he wanted to run in.
One fateful call from a friend put Ash on the path to be on the Republican National Committee.
The friend suggested he run for an open seat on the RNC in 2007, and he defeated Don Goldwater, nephew of Barry, Arizona’s late Republican icon.
A rule amendment Ash floated at the convention in 2008, requiring any member elected as an RNC officer to be a member of the Republican National Committee, was soundly defeated.
“I’ve always been a bit of an outsider in the RNC,” he said.
He had to repeatedly fight for his position inside of the committee.
“I was threatened by somebody that I would be taken out in the next election ... for trying to change the rules,” he said.
Ash not only survived the challenge, but has risen through the ranks.
After all this chaos in this election, does Ash still talk to his friend who suggested he run for the RNC nine years ago?
“We’re still great friends,” he said.
