CHICAGO – One thing you can say about former Illinois GOP Chairman Pat Brady – he seems to thrive in swimming against the Republican grassroots tide.
In May, he led an effort to change the IL GOP's party platform to no longer oppose same-sex marriages. Nearly 80 percent of the convention delegates opposed the effort. Before that, he worked for the ACLU to get a few Republicans to support same sex marriage despite the party's overall opposition. Before that, he was forced to resign as IL GOP chairman when his social issue views were directly in opposition to the party faithful's.
Now Brady's part of a small national group that is trying to stop Donald Trump from becoming the party's nominee next month in Cleveland.
Brady, a vocal Trump opponent, told the Daily Herald he's "assigned to lobby Republican leaders from a handful of Midwestern states who will set convention rules. The effort is aimed at changing party rules to let GOP convention delegates vote for a candidate of their choice, no matter who won their state's primary."
And although Brady ran on the GOP primary ballot to be a John Kasich delegate, he says the group he's working with doesn't have a replacement candidate in mind.
"If we can get some momentum with this, I think you'll see that come together, too," Brady said. "But it's one step at a time. It's an uphill climb, undoubtedly."
More at the Daily Herald
