Time to examine the US Presidential race. We've just seen the release of Trump 2.0. Its is Interim Bug-Fix compared to the flawed Trump 1.0. The big change to this project is however, Trump 3.0, which is coming in July.
I’ve written several times that Trump would be a better candidate if he only had discipline and bothered to use his considerable assets well. Now we are starting to see the ‘new Trump’ in the more disciplined form, produced probably solely by Paul Manafort and starting to yield results as we saw in New York’s primary. This is different from the shoot-from-the-hip gaffe-machine that was Trump 1.0 for the previous nine months. This is Trump 2.0, the new edition. Not as much a total reboot but more like a bug-fix. Keeping to much of what made Trump so appealing to many in the Republican party but fixing many of the most glaring bugs. This is not the ‘final’ edition of ‘Campaign Trump’ which we could call Trump 3.0. That is the candidate we will see recreated for the general election, starting at the Republican Convention in July (assuming Trump wins there). Trump 3.0 will be significantly different from Trump 2.0. If we think of iPhones, Trump 1.0 is the original iPhone. Trump 2.0 is iPhone 3G, fixing most of the obvious faults but looking and feeling still quite similar. Then the real killer iPhone was the iPhone 4, quite different beast, and that is what will be coming in Trump 3.0 for the Autumn race against Hillary Clinton.
To underestand Trump 2.0, we need to first understand the truth about Trump 1.0 (not the illusions around it). Only then can we grasp the meaning of Trump 2.0 and contemplate the certain need for a total rewrite into Trump 3.0 if he does grab the nomination in Cleveland in July.
SHORT VERSION OF THIS LONG ARTICLE
I wrote a long article explaining my thinking, but now re-reading it and editing it, I know some readers of this blog won't bother to read that long a piece. So let me first give you the short version. Then for those who really want it, I have the original 'full' version of the article below.
Trump 1.0 was by design a fraud. We know now that Trump never intended to run the full race in 2016, he was supposed to get to as high as he could, expecting to get maybe to 2nd place, then end his run when the voting times came near. This was supposed to be a brand-building project for Trump brands and Trump's growing TV pundit and expert career in politics and speaking events with Republicans into the future. Because of that, Trump 1.0 was pursuing voter demographics, raising topics, creating trouble in areas most sensible 'serious' candidates who WANTED to win, didn't dare to go. They knew it was lethal to a long-term career past the summer, meaning even if they tried these mad Trumpian tactics, it would then kill them in the Autumn campaign against whoever Democrat would be the rival. You simply don't win if you start off by angering the Hispanic vote or the female vote etc. What was so bewildering to Trump's rivals and to the pundits, was how well this Trumpian strategy worked, that he soon leaped to lead the polling and then of course won so many of the states so far.
If we examine the first 9 months of Trump's campaign through the normal lens of a Presidential campaign, he seems to have gone out of his way to create essentially a mine field in front of his own path. Any one of his gaffes can be deadly against Hillary Clinton and half of what he's done can murder him already before the Convention in Cleveland. As the 'stop Trump' movement finally got its act together, and started to run ads against Trump, in Wisconsin for example, the concentrated effort against Trump (in a state that favored Cruz and was not friendly to Trump) worked. For the stop Trump movement that was almost too late. But it shows how damaging Trump's first 9 months were so far, and all those arguments against Trump will be far more powerful in a general election where Hillary would have a massive budget for negative ads running hateful Trump sound-bites all day. If we examine Trump's run in this year by that prism of a Presidential campaign, it is a shortsighted strategy at best. It might get him half-way but it guarantees a loss by November .An epic gargantuan catastrophic calamity of a loss.
But now, apply a different lens. What if Trump's purpose had nothing to do with winning and his intention was only to raise his profile with conservatives, to get some credibility having run as a candidate, and he intended to drop out by say December or early January, from about 2nd or 3rd place in the polling, weeks before Iowa voted. Then all the nastiness about Mexicans, Megyn Kelly's period and John McCain's heroism, that would be mostly forgotten and among the very edge of the Tea Party he'd be the big hero - and everybody would greet him with 'Make America Great Again' and 'Build the Wall' etc. He'd be a folk hero in the style of Sarah Palin's 'Drill Baby Drill' except with some sense to not sound quite as dumb as Palin does. Meanwhile the Republican party would be stuck with all the damage done to relations with Hispanics and women and war veterans and Musllims and Catholics and whatnot but Trump doesn't care about anybody except himself, so thats consistent with Trump. Like his numerous bankruptcies, let the other guy be the sucker with the raw deal. If Trump had not climbed to the top of the polls, if he only peaked at 2 or 3, and dropped out of the race before Iowa (as many many expected including me, early on) then this run would have been quite spectacularly successful in making Trump the most successful cross-over star between politics and business, perfectly prepared for more life on TV as the Apprentice run was clearly coming to its end with falling ratings.
Because Trump never intended to stay in the race till the end, he could say the most outrageous things ever, make the most ridiculous promises (Mexico will pay) and just postpone on whatever he had promised (list of really smart advisors on military policy, or his tax returns). Because he never intended to actually run, he never hired the ground staff needed to win in say Iowa. He never bothered to spend money on a Big Data operation. Because he got free TV media all the time, Trump never bothered to spend on TV advertising the single biggest expenditure in most campaigns, so his run was also remarkably cheap. And as Trump didn't care for WINNING, he didn't need to worry about any CONSISTENCY in his messages, meaning he never even bothered to learn about the policy aspects. It didn't matter because by the time anyone might notice some contradiction, he'd be out of the race. Hence we had the spectacle of five separate Abortion positions in three days. Any sane reasonable candidate would rush to correct a gaffe before it becomes the video clip played to devastating damage later in the political season but not Trump. He didn't CARE as he wasn't seriously running. So what if Hillary might run that sound-bite later, Trump will be out long before that happens. Or even so what if Cruz and the Stop Trump gang might get their act together and run some Trump sound-bites against him now in the Republican race, that didn't matter either. Because Trump 1.0 was never intended to run as a campaign. Only a teaser. Quit before Iowa. Trump most desperately doesn't want to show us his tax returns because he isn't as rich as he claims. This was just a branding gambit. A fraud played on the Republican party and voters, Trump never intended to run seriously for President and all his silly ideas of the wall paid by Mexico or deporting 11 million or banning Muslims or exiting NATO or arming Japan with nukes or reintroducing torture, that was all just said to get ratings. To get publicity. To get bigger audiences. Remember Trump early on, he was bragging about how Trump's presence on TV debates would boost their RATINGS.
What a bizarre thing for any politician to WASTE time talking about. Seriously? Who the hell cares if CNN's debate had 11 or 13 million viewers. The sensible politician wants to spend the RARE time he has on live TV talking about how his great vision will help America or whatever is today's talking point. NOBODY would waste ONE MINUTE voluntarily talking about a news TV show's RATINGS. Unless you're Trump who has unlimited TV visibility anyway, who is more a reality TV star than serious politician, who rally DOES care more about RATINGS than VOTES (or haha, DELEGATES). Now as we look back at the Trump 1.0 period, its clear to see, it was a fake, a fraud. Trump was playing a con on the Republican voters, promising them total Santa Claus lies with the intention to run away and let the Republicans find out later, there is no Santa Claus. Look at Trump's silly budget - the most ridiculous budget ever presented by a serious front-running candidate that would destroy the economy. This from a 'businessman'. He was not serious. Not at all. He was playing the Republicans for fools. And shame on Republican voters (and conservative media) for not picking up on it. They fell for it, line hook and sinker.
Unfortunately in that process, Trump was striken by a rare incurable disease of running for President (see Mitt Romney or Ron Paul for how devastating that can be to your life, utterly consuming it after the disease strikes). And before he could get out, Trump rose to the top of the polls. The rivals were actually far weaker than it seemed. Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Dr Ben Carson and Ted Cruz, the four who were at the top when Trump started or rose there briefly in the run since, none had any chance against Trump's unorthodox campaigning style. As Trump suddenly discovered what large political rallies feel like - when they chant your name - that creates an addiction you can't fix with anything else. There is no cure. And Trump is that talented, naturally gifted he could grow the 2,000 crowds into 5,000 crowds into 10,000 crowds - and loved it. Then, as he was leading all polls, and it really wasn't costing him much - selling hats essentially paid his way - Trump lent the campaign a few million and continued his run past the intended ending point. Now Trump 1.0 was asked to do what it was never designed to do, win elections. And it performed well in that task too. For Republican elections. To win those, Trump was now laying a massive unmarked minefield into his own political future with explosions due long before the Convention would start and lasting long past the last ballots counted in Hillary's landslide victory in November by when Trump's name would be roughly as popular in politics as Nixon. Trump could indeed feed his moron segment with ever more outrageous belligerent nasty rhetoric and keep his face on national TV by quoting Mussolini, approving of Putin, not denouncing David Duke, thinking comparisons to Hitler are nice, and feuding with the Pope. This .. from an AMERICAN politician who wants to win IN AMERICA? It was a case of digging ever deeper into the hole. But to keep winning the racist vote, that was what Trump needed to do. And it frightened the rest of the party. And indeed, Trump was still winning with this self-destructive campaign, because his rivals stayed in the race to split the rest of the Republican vote, so that up to New York's vote this week, Trump had only received 37% of the Republican votes but he had managed to turn that into 49% of the delegates. Not because Trump or his campaign is that smart, its how the Republican party rules award the delegates. Because the field was so large, it meant Trump could win with a lower percent of the vote. In any 'normal' year Trump would have lost with this strategy early on against say a John McCain in 2008 or Mitt Romney in 2012.
In some ways Trump was lucky, in other ways he was the perfect candidate for this year and this race, and in some ways his rivals were inept, incompetent and/or too confused to react. And Trump ran away with the race. On a destructive kamikazi campaign which had Trump's plane aimed for SS Republican Party intending to sink it in the general election this Autumn. So there was no convenient point to pull out - and suddenly, Trump didn't WANT to quit. He now suddely can taste winning the Presidency and he WANTS that now. He was leading the delegates and after Super Tuesday, it became clear, he can seriously win it. Ted Cruz, his closest rival had no more good states left. Trump was now likely to get the most delegates.
But as Trump's campaign was not built to run for President, it was a fake campaign to get Trump visibility, now forced to do something it was never intended to do, it did a lousy job. Its like driving a screw into the wall by using a hammer. Its gonna be messy and it won't really hold. Trump 1.0 underperformed and was a litany of amateur mistakes. Campaign manager Corey Lewandowski's silly spat with the reporter. He should have instantly apologized. Better yet Trump should have instantly apologized. Moved on, they wasted so much media time and campaign effort on that useless mission to somehow safeguard Lewandowski's reputation or Trump's - but to what good? Or what was the MORONIC decision to keep attacking the weaklings of the race while they were still in it, like Jeb Bush and Chris Christie. What Trump needed was for a fractured field so he could win the nomination. If Trump 1.0 was a serious race for President, then Trump would have focused his attacks like a LASER only on Cruz, to minimize HIS vote, but ensure as much as possible not going to Trump spilled to the others, Marco Rubio, John Kasich, Dr Ben Carson, Christie and Jeb. If Trump today had those five still in contention - all but Christie had the funds to continue - Trump would certainly clinch the nomination by June 7 and he'd be near 1,000 delegates by now. Instead silly Trump 1.0 campaign let Trump go on and play his school-yard bully games attacking Jeb, Christie, Rubio until each quit the race. Thats utterly stupid. It was constantly Trump's chief rival Ted Cruz who begged others to quit and let the race be just one-on-one Cruz vs Trump. Any slightly awake politico would get it, that if this is what Cruz desperately wants, its not a good thing for Trump to pursue it, he probably should seek the opposite.
Essentially all of Trump 1.0 behavior can be seen as excellent if the goal is to gain visbility and reputation in the Republican and conservative circles, especially near the White Supremacists and Nazi KKK edge of the Tea Party. While Trump 1.0 was indeed successful in winning the majority of contests up to now, and plurality of votes and plurality of delegates - he has SEVERELY underperformed. It was all due to SELF-INDUCED unforced DAMAGE by Trump himself. But as Trump kept racking up the wins, he didn't see the damage he was doing to his own immediate political future. Like a normal, not reinforced ship, going into an ice field with relatively thin ice. The ship could be ploughing ahead but the ice starts to rip holes into the ship which starts to take on water and essentially starts its path to sinking but as the ship still makes progress forward, the Captain gets an illusion of progress and the sounds and sights of breaking into the ice ahead obscures the simultaneous damage to the ship at the waterline - often until its too late.
Trump is a smart man and he hates any waste. What outraged him was to find out that of some states that he had won, suddenly Cruz was able to snatch an unfair share of delegates. If Trump 1.0 was performing 'well enough' to win visibility and polling and votes in primaries the actual DELEGATE battle was somehow being lost. That was all due to the fact that his campaign manager Lewandowski was totally in over his head. He had no clue how to do this part of the race. Trump 1.0 had been pushed way too far into what it was never intended to do. And they were indeed severely in trouble. This became clear to Trump just at the end of March. And Trump brought in Paul Manafort.
Manafort saw what was going on, he quickly understood this is utterly the wrong vehicle for this journey, and Trump 1.0 needed an urgent refit, to do the rush-job bug fix into Trump 2.0 (which will still see further iterations into Trump 2.1 and 2.2 in the coming weeks no doubt). Trump was still winning yes but in the delegate hunt, almost everthing about Trump 1.0 would repel most DELEGATES. And plenty of the bugs in Trump 1.0 were actually suppressing Trump's total vote so Trump 2.0 would also improve Trump's performance in the remaining primaries. Now as to Trump himself, he is one of the rare politicians who could truly pivot out of Trump 1.0 with no regrets and fully at ease because Trump 1.0 was not real. It was a creation, a fake, an act. Trump played the part of the most racist bigoted Republican he could imagine. But now as long as Manafort could well describe to Trump what his new acting role would be in Trump 2.0, he could then do that act for a couple of months. If that was what was needed, yes. And we've already seen plenty of evidence of this transition. Some parts come easily (stop the calling into talk shows, stop the nightly Twitterfloods) while others will need some prep (policy papers and speeches etc). So what we now see as the New Trump is no less the real Trump as 1.0 was because both are pure creations. Both are acts. Both are fakes. As will be Trump 3.0 which, if Trump now wins the nomination in July, we will next see. It will not be the real Trump either. Only Trump 4.0 once he would be sworn in as the next President, would reveal something akin to the real Donald Trump but don't worry, Trump will never win the general election.
So I thought through a long list of where is Trump already starting his pivots into Trump 2.0 and what are pretty obvious next steps and I summarized it into this table:
ROUGH ESTIMATE OF CHANGES IN TRUMP 2.0 BUG-FIX
Campaign Aspect . . . . . . Trump 1.0 . . . . . . Trump 2.0
Demeanor . . . . . . . . . . . . Juvenile . . . . . . . . Presidential
Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Erratic . . . . . . . . . Consistent
Speeches . . . . . . . . . . . . . Spontaneous . . . . . Scripted
Talk shows . . . . . . . . . . . . Call in all time . . . Rare pre-announced visits only
Questions in Interviews . . Ignore . . . . . . . . . . Respond
Interruptions . . . . . . . . . . . Constantly . . . . . . Rarely
Respect to Rivals . . . . . . . Taunting . . . . . . . . Formal
Budget . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Shoe-string . . . . . . Massive
TV ads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Very rare . . . . . . . . Massive
TV ad tone . . . . . . . . . . . . Mostly negative . . Mostly negative
Mass events . . . . . . . . . . . Daily . . . . . . . . . . . Less, few per week
Small events . . . . . . . . . . . Occasionally . . . . . Daily
Policy Speeches . . . . . . . . Very rare . . . . . . . . Several per month, teleprompter
Stump Speeches . . . . . . . . Rambling jazz . . . . Scripted but memorized ‘best hits’
Audience questions . . . . . Frequent . . . . . . . . . No more (unless scripted/planted)
Talk to press at events . . . Occasionally . . . . . Rarely (planned)
Political Staff . . . . . . . . . . Novices . . . . . . . . . Experts
Polling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Only public polls . . Hire internal polling
Policy Papers . . . . . . . . . . Barely any . . . . . . . Deep, detailed
Tax Returns . . . . . . . . . . . Delay delay . . . . . . Release soon 5 years
Wall / Mexico pays . . . . . yes . . . . . . . . . . . . . yes
Grow military . . . . . . . . . . yes . . . . . . . . . . . . . yes
Deport 11 million . . . . . . . yes . . . . . . . . . . . . . (no longer volunteer but yes if asked)
Block Muslims . . . . . . . . . yes . . . . . . . . . . . . . no
Exit NATO . . . . . . . . . . . . yes . . . . . . . . . . . . . no
Friends with Putin . . . . . . . yes . . . . . . . . . . . . . no
Fund Planned Parenthood . yes . . . . . . . . . . . . . no
End Obamacare . . . . . . . . . yes . . . . . . . . . . . . . yes
Nukes for Japan . . . . . . . . . yes . . . . . . . . . . . . . no
Abortion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . confused . . . . . . . . clear pro-life with exceptions
Feud with Megyn Kelly . . . yes . . . . . . . . . . . . . no
Feud with GOP . . . . . . . . . yes . . . . . . . . . . . . . no
Feud with Cruz . . . . . . . . . yes . . . . . . . . . . . . . yes but more gently, like front-runner
Feud with Kasich . . . . . . . yes . . . . . . . . . . . . . no more
Feud with Hillary . . . . . . . yes . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hell yes
Feud with Bernie . . . . . . . yes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . no more
Unforced gaffes . . . . . . . . near-daily . . . . . . . . almost never
Twitter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Twitterfloods . . . . . Occasional campaign promo Tweets
Claim self-funding . . . . . . yes . . . . . . . . . . . . . (no longer volunteer but admit no if asked)
Fund-raising . . . . . . . . . . . passive online . . . . . active via email and also some events
Celebrate polling . . . . . . . always . . . . . . . . . . . almost never (unless specifically asked)
Victory speeches . . . . . . . taunting rivals . . . . . respectful
Above estimate of changes from Trump 1.0 to Trump 2.0 in April 2016 by Tomi T Ahonen, April 21, 2016
This list may be freely shared and quoted
We have seen many of those changes already starting from Trump's far more Presidential victory speech after New York where he actually called Cruz "Senator Cruz" rather than "Lyin' Ted" to the attempts he is making to repair rifts with the Republican party to how much discipline he now has with no more calls to TV talk shows or late night Twitterfloods. This is a deliberate rebranding of Trump into what can only be summarized as the illusion of the 'ideal mainstream Republican candidate'. He will no longer propose any controversial positions like supporting Planned Parenthood or ending NATO or arming Japan with nuclear weapons. Trump will learn the basics of how to speak Republican, without a New York accent - so for example he will no longer need 5 separate attempts in 3 days to try to figure out how to answer the standard Abortion question. It will not convince all or even most Republicans that Trump is truly one of them but it will help Manafort convert some who are sitting on the fence. And Manafort needs every single delegate he can now find and secure. Trump will not be the nominee unless Trump can win it on the first ballot in Cleveland, because when delegates become unbound (half already by the second ballot) thats when many will desert Trump and vote for Cruz (or Kasich) instead. Trump's only one shot ever, to become the Republican nominee after the farce that was Trump 1.0, is now, to lock and secure 1,237 delegates for the first ballot in Cleveland. He can do it, but it requires discipline and a totally conventional classic mid-ground uncontroversial campaign attempting to build bridges and make friends. Yes he's a conniving snake total fraud con-artist - but this is the only path forward. And you know what, I say if Trump stays mostly gaffe-free and that Trump 2.0 I outline above even just mostly comes true - then yes, Manafort will be the hero of 2016 who rescued Trump's campaign just as it was about to implode. Of course, nothing can save Trump from Hillary in the Autumn, but that is the story of Trump 3.0, the next fake creation of the reality TV star Donald Trump that we will see for the first time in July. I have to wait for that iteration before we can talk about its specifics just like we have to wait for the iPhone 7 before I can tell you anything about how well it can do in the mobile market.
Now that was about 4,000 words. If you want the full story of the above, in another 9,000 words, follow me after the break here:
(welcome back)
This is the long version of the above, so it will of course have some repetition. But I hope to shed much more light into both Trump 2,0 and 1.0 so we can understand how this all changes the race.
TRUMP 1.0 WAS PURE FRAUD
We now know that the original Trump 2015 campaign was a lark. Not just a lark, it was all smoke and mirror, it was a fake, it was a fraud, he was not serious for one moment of it. It was all purely a show. It was Trump playing the title role in the low-budget off-Hollywood straight-to-DVD movie remake of the classic Mr Smith goes to Washington, rewritten as Mr Racist Goes to Washington. If you are one of those readers who thinks “Mr Trump tells it like it is” - I am sorry, this blog has nothing for you today. You have been brainwashed, good luck with that delusion you have. Once you get over it, and get to terms with the fact that Trump is the most deceitful candidate ever to run for President, please return to this blog. The easy test is, when any of your friends utters those words again ‘but Trump says it like it is’ when your response becomes to laugh how absurd that is - that is when this blog can help, not before.
Trump is the most deceitful politician ever to run. It is ironic then that his most fervent supporters have fallen for the blatant lie that he ‘tells it like it is’. Ironic. (Politifact measured Trump lying at 76% of the time when even Dick Cheney only lies 59% of the time and current politicans like Obama, Biden, or either of the Clintons lies at the 25% to 30% level.) Some very delusional Republicans who were similarly brainwashed thinking Sarah Palin was actually a misunderstood political genius took 6 and a half YEARS to get to terms that Palin is a moron. About half of Republicans knew she was incompetent already by November 2008. We knew on this blog in early Autumn of 2008. We deal with the facts here, not the delusions. So if you think Trump tells it like it is, simply, you are brainwashed, you need an INTERVENTION. As I said, good luck with that.
From that, it automatically follows that we must tread VERY cautiously into Trump 1.0 territory. He is a SERIAL liar. Trump is a HABITUAL liar. He SYSTEMATICALLY avoids the truth. Whatever he says, is MORE likely than not, to be UNTRUE than true. Yes, 76% lies. He is like Vladimir Putin in that way, a politician who has evolved into the post-truth era. Where what he says and the truth have nothing more than coincidential correlation. Its LESS likely to be true than untrue, if we examine ANYTHING we have heard during Trump 1.0. We KNOW its a lie, we know its a fraud, we know its all a grand illusion. Nothing can be taken for what Trump SAID it is. What we CAN do, is examine what he has DONE. We CAN examine what others have said about the campaign. And we can also listen to the occasional ‘exceptional’ unusual comment that is not much repeated, that MAY be truthful. An accidential admission of a rare truth, intermixed in an ocean of lies.
If you remember Tommy Flanagan on Saturday Night Live (played by Jon Lovitz) the pathological liar (“and my girlfriend is .. Morgan Fairchild, yeah, thats the ticket.”), then Trump 1.0 is that SNL parody come alive but now Tommy Flanagan has gone into politics. EVERYTHING he said was a lie, and the more outrageous, the more we laughed. So yeah. Its not just that we’ll build that wall, the Trump wall but guess what. I will make Mexico PAY for that wall.
Yeah. This is a Saturday Night Live skit. The US President suddenly starts to act like a Mafioso, bullying the neigbor. Nice economy you got there, Mexico, sad thing if something were to happen to it. By the way, mind paying for our little wall here? Incidentially where do you think Trump gets this idiotic idea? It was Putin who was bullying Ukraine and other former Soviet states threatening to cut off their promised gas on the pipeline DURING WINTER if they didn’t pay his extortion money, suddenly paying more. Its pure raw unfiltered Putinism. Yes, a thug would do that to a neighbor. Not any legitimate (or rational) leader of any legitimate democracy, though.
My point is, for this blog, we have to start at Trump 1.0 - the TRUTH not the illusion. Trump created an illusion of him being a serious candidate. He pretended he was gonna run all the way and he pretended he had all these great plans for America and all the ‘best minds’ and that he’d some day release his tax returns etc. No way. He NEVER INTENDED to finish this run. Its all been a hoax, a fake, a scam, a con, a hoax, a deception, a swindle (wait, this is starting to sound like a Monty Python sketch: Gouda, Edam, Jarlsberger, Mozzarella, Parmesan, Gorgonzola, Cheddar, Danish Blue...). So we have to be very careful to now study Trump 1.0 for the TRUTH rather than his prolonged elaborate illusion, and see what the campaign really was, to understand how it now becomes Trump 2.0.
INCREDIBLY NATURALLY GIFTED POLITICIAN, INCREDIBLY
That being said, Trump is a great naturally gifted politician who knews how valuable it is to insist he is not a politician. He is a great public speaker instinctively, on par with the the natural skills of the greats we’ve seen like Obama, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan and yes, better than Hillary, obviously. Trump is BY FAR the best TV celebrity of any candidate ever to run, ie he is best suited for the modern era of 24 hour news (unscripted, ie similar in that way to ‘reality TV’) and he is genuinely a Reality TV star (out of both the World Wrestling experience earlier in his career and then the Apprentice series running many seasons). If TV is the most powerful media in modern politics, Trump is as much its native son as in the era when Hollywood ruled, Ronald Reagan was one of its stars. But moving past TV we are in the time when soon, possibly this election 2016, Social Media will rule and the best Twitter politician ever, is .. Trump. He has natural skill to use public speaking in large events, and TV talk shows, and Twitter - to gain enormous attention and boost his campaign. Too bad, he is the most undisciplined politician ever to run, he has used those methods to sow a personal minefield for his campaign like no other. What little gain he has had out of it, there are FAR greater dangers now ahead, all done simply because Trump was so efficient in using the methods but so undisciplined in doing it. He has personally undermined his political future. He is like the submarine Captain who orders his torpedos to be set on permanent leftward-turn so when fired, they will go in a full circle to come hit that same spot where the submarine itself lies. But note, this was not a ‘bug’ in Trump 1.0. That was a system which was never designed to even TRY to WIN. So he didn’t care. Its like blaming Colossus for not being able to send emails (Colossus was the British computer of World War 2 that broke the German Enigma code for their secret war messages). Only LATER computers would be used, in addition to code-breaking ALSO to send emails...
We know now, that Trump never intended to win the race. He wanted to run for a while to boost his visibility and help his brand, climb ideally to second place with his unorthodox strategy of being the belligerent bully, appealing to the unserved fringes who could conceivably support an Archie Bunker hatred racist candidacy similar to say Pat Buchanan or who would have loved someone like Joe McCarthy in his day. By no means the majority of Americans but a significant minority of Republican voters. So we had the well-documented charade with Mexicans are rapists, McCain is no war hero, Megyn Kelly was on her period, ban the Muslims, the Pope is not graceful, etc etc. Trump never expected to win, he was building his brand and had originally intended to drop out before the first votes in February.
But this was an exceptional year. The front-runner was a Bush (never were strong front-runners, any of them) and Jeb was the weakest of the Bush clan. What seemed like an incredibly strong bench and resulted in 17 candidates, ended up with a series of duds. Chris Christie was past his time, now his career washed way under the world’s businest bridge. Scott Walker was just a mindless Koch brothers puppet. Dr Ben Carson turned out to have fatally imaginary memories of his own past (or imaginarily fatal). Marco Rubio turned out to be all talk no action. John Kasich proved his image of being a boring wooden technocrat was far too kind to how boring he is in person. Carly Fiorina showed momentary promise until we discovered the monsters living vividly inside her head, which she confuses with reality. Former runner-up Mike Huckabee was now a wash-out. Another former runner-up Rick Santorum was proof year 2012 was bottom-of-the-barrel quality which Mitt Romney still had trouble putting away. The Mittster himself mercifully decided against running once again. His popular VP choice, Paul Ryan surprisingly decided against running. Rand Paul turned out to be more of a space cadet than the tireless campaign warrior his dad was. And former VP choice, Sarah Palin teased us with a run but alas, the most disastrous candidate up to that point didn’t jump in. We did get the brief return of another campaign fool Governor Oops, Rick Perry. But come on, Linsday Graham? George Pataki? Come on, seriously, can you identify Pataki if you saw him in a picture? It says something that the MOST HATED candidate of the 17 (of polling prior to Trump entering the race) Ted Cruz is now second behind Trump. Cruz who still refuses even to apologize for calling his Senator-colleague who leads not just the Republicans in the Senate but chairs the Senate itself, Mitch McConnell, a liar. Cruz the man who brought the nation the concept of futile fake filibusters simply to score political points. The most hated Republican in the Senate - among Republicans (as well as obviously among Democrats).
The 2015 field of 17 was filled with flawed candidates who on paper looked strong but were all with fatal flaws, most visible already last summer and a few (Dr Carson, Carly Fiorina) that were revealed quite suddenly when the spotlight was on them. A Trump decision (I so wonder about that Bill Clinton phone call) in the summer of 2015 was a ‘safe bet’ to get a lot of attention in a very crowded field, especially if Trump played in unconventional ways NOT TO WIN BUT to get maximum publicity and attention. And boy did he. As 538 blog calculated, by early Spring, Trump had received 30 times more press coverage than the second most featured Republican rival in the race !!! The value of Trump’s free press was estimated to be worth almost two BILLION dollars. The free gift the American media gave to Trump in the early half of the PRIMARY race was more than the TOTAL campaign spending (not just TV ads) of the 2012 campaigns in the primary AND GENERAL election of Romney - AND OBAMA, combined !!!! In just half a year. So while Jeb Bush’s campaign burned 100 million dollars of TV ads in six months - more than any campaign before that early in the primary race - Jeb’s upbeat message was drowned out by Trump on every TV channel every day.
I said Trump is naturally gifted to control TV as his media - but he also caught the newsmedia ill-prepared for a fully experienced reality TV star messing up their carefully staged ‘balanced’ nightly TV debates with political pundits. Trump totally took control of the ‘interviews’ (often only of soft-ball questions) and Trump would relentlessly interrupt the interviewers and then ignore the questions and throw so many lies in a row, that fact-checkers could not keep up. There was never a less ‘professional’ politician TV interviewee as Trump. The newsmedia struggled to adjust to this new style of campaigning and Trump took advantage of that of course. But again, thanks to a lack of discipline and lack of any actual plan, most of Trump’s early triumphs were for naught. He has almost nothing to show for it as permanent gains, but hours of videotape as permanent stains to his reputation and political future.
Trump was lucky that the field was weaker than it even seemed. He was lucky ALSO that it was the widest field we’ve ever seen. If it was a three-person race, having 30% support guarantees you can’t be the leader and if math goes badly, it means you’re lingering in last place. In a 17 person race, 30% guarantees you are leading - and usually by a lot. As Trump was from August till today. Trump has led all national polling except for two very brief instances neither lasting more than a week.
Trump found an initial message which fit his past history with the Republicans (leading the ‘birtherism’ charge against Obama - about his birth certificate and thus mobilizing all those who felt Obama was not an American, that Muslims were evil, that foreigners are plotting against ‘Murica etc). There must be at least a 10% edge to the Republican party that nobody serious has dared to court in many decades, which is openly racist and borderline Nazi (or KKK or both) sympathizer. That got Trump onto his first step. Then he started punching and Trump punched hard, nasty, in juvenile ways which got him huge attention - and he has a knack to pick nasty school-yard-style nickames that stick. Jeb was low energy. That really got inside Jeb’s head and the front-runner was soon out of the top 3, eventually winning only a grand total of 4 delegates before dropping out. This was from the candidate who had the largest campaign fund-raising in history of either party, for the start of his campaign. Jeb raised so much money, that the AMOUNT of money raised, was what caused Mitt Romney to decide against running again.
Scott Walker was the other early favorite of big Republican funding. When Walker quit and Jeb was falling in the polls, the Republican fund-raisers got cold feet. That meant that many who would normally be funding a reasonably strong candidate, now decided to wait it out instead, to let the field narrow to see who is left standing. That meant that many who could have had a strong run like say Christie or Pataki or Rand Paul - had to quit as they ran out of money. Its normal for money to run out for some candidates but in past years the silly primary money had propped up loonie candidates like Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum. This year, after the rich donors had their fingers BADLY burnt by Jeb and Walker, decided no, lets wait until we figure this race out. So when that money was needed to fund a ‘stop Trump’ movement, the money was not there. Not until the disaster was obvious in mid-March. That was essentially too late.
In a normal year if one candidate raises to the top, he gets attacked. And someone so much the outsider like Trump should have drawn a lot of heat. He did get, some, meek attacks early, but diffused by the very wide field, where early debates had 10 or 11 candidates in the MAIN debate and half a dozen more in the ‘kids table’ debate. Trump could play ‘divide and conquer’ tactics, dealing with one or two rivals at a time, and KNOCK THEM OUT, like Rick Perry, Scott Walker, Lindsay Graham etc... knocked out by Trump. Then those others who were still alive, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, etc - they were beaten down to nearly-nothing-level support. Trump let ‘least dangerous’ rivals climb to higher levels like Dr Ben Carson and Ted Cruz, and some of the minnows in the field decided early to avoid confronting Trump at all (like John Kasich, Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum - plus Carson and Cruz) simply to avoid being targeted and eliminated by the human wrecking ball that was Trump 1.0.
In a ‘normal’ year like we saw in 2008 and 2012, the front-runner gets attacked and if he can’t take heat, he falls (Rudy Giuliani, Michelle Bachmann, Tim Pawlenty etc). It is a fair test of those who can stand the heat and win (Romney, McCain). With Trump the attacks were meek, uncoordinated, muted, and by weak rivals early on. It created the illusion of the Teflon Donald, who can’t be beaten. Who can say anything and it won’t hurt him.
In some ways Trump is a brilliant naturally gifted public speaker and totally ruthless straight-face liar who can sell you a pile of shit and you think you’ve bought gold. Thats priceless in politics where so much of the game is lies and overpromises. Trump also was luckly to be conditioned by his past to be exceptionally suited for this season, reality TV, 24 hour news, social media, Twitter. He was smart/brave/dumb enough to go where no recent Republican dared, to seek the white supremacist vote to get his base (they utterly adore him) and he is a very efficient verbal fighter in a school-boy-bully way, at the lowest level insults (you could say ‘typical New Yorker - when uttered as an insult by a tourist from a small town where people are always nice - and note, this coming from a blog writer who lived in New York City for 8 years and loved it there).
Then Trump fought hard and beat up on his meek rivals who were mostly caught off guard ill-prepared for Trump’s campaign, which continuously bewildered everybody. How could he say that, doesn’t he get it, that this is suicidal in politics? Now we know - Trump NEVER INTENDED TO STAY IN THE RACE to try to win. He didn’t care. And that made him far more dangerous as a rival. Trump wouldn’t mind going down in flames talking about his penis size arguing with Rubio but Rubio was comprehensively shamed by that last debate exchange when he climbed down to Trump’s gutter. His family must have essentially disowned poor Marco after that schoolyard exchange (which was judged to have been WON by Rubio haha... yet he quit that method immediately as his political life was being ruined in the process). Again. Trump didn’t care because.. Trump NEVER INTENDED to try to win.
Trump 1.0 was a house of cards, that became ever more perilous and yet refused to collapse. It somehow avoided any whiff of a breeze and was just built higher and higher where everybody is now expecting a pending collapse which just keeps getting postponed by yet another week and another poll. Trump has a ceiling of 20%, no he has a ceiling of 25%, he really has a ceiling of 30%, he has a total impenetrable ceiling of 35%, he cannot ever pass 40% and so forth...
Meanwhile Trump himself didn’t care. He was NOT in it to win it. He was perpetuating a fraud on Republican voters, a classic Trump trick, a bait-and-switch. He promises to build a wall and deport 11 million and bring back torture but in reality, he’ll quit before the first votes start and he will just see his popularity rise and the brand value of Trump rise to something near the silly levels he himself values it at. We speculated on this blog with my readers many times about Trump’s motivations. Now we know. He didn’t intend to win. We speculated about his spending, does he have a secret army of ground-game operatives under extreme contracts of non-disclosure, behind those locked doors of his occasional ground offices or is it a fake front, with nothing behind the facade. Now we know. It was only a fake pretend-campaign with a few pretend bosses with no underlings. Even so, Trump has already fired half the staff he had hired for the various in-state operations. He never had much there to begin with. While Hillary Clinton and Ted Cruz have spent large portions of their total campaign funding to build massive voter ‘Big Data’ systems to power the general election - and already now help in the nomination fight - Trump has gone along with a bare-bones shoestring budget based mostly just on rented voter lists from the Republican party’s base database (that any Republican candidate can use). He likes to put on the show that he is really rich and spends tons, when in reality most of it is - like most Trumpian things - only goldplated. To look rich while not being so.
But Trump rose to the top. He didn’t climb to second place. He climbed to the top. He only very momentarily lost the national polling lead - for literally only a few days - once to Dr Carson and once to Cruz. Other than about 10 days, Trump has led all Republican polling nationally for 270 days now. If you’re at the top, why NOT stay in the race for the next vote, and actually WIN a state before dropping out? Especially if this whole show is costing Trump a pittance as most of his TV visibility is from free media, often with Trump not even having to leave Trump Tower - if the TV shows won’t send camera crews to Trump Tower, he can simply call the talk shows who will love to put Trump on. Why not stay in the race. He knew he could never win and he never intended to win, he wasn’t even ever supposed to get to first place. And then he started winning.
There is the other part - to which I can attest in a modest level myself - if you like to speak in public (Trump obviously loves it) then the larger the audience to applaud you and laugh with you at your jokes and to cheer you - the more that becomes addictive. I haven’t spoken to audiences of 20,000 in size but I have to audiences in the low thousands, 2,000 to 3,000 to even 5,000 and when you are a ‘hit’ with that kind of audience and they applaud and they laugh at your spontaneous joke - that is truly addictive. It is yes, better than having sex. Trump had experienced ‘my level’ of that adulation before, at occasional conservative conferences where he was a popular speaker before - but now, the Obama-esque, nearly Hitler-esque audience rallies that Trump regularly attracts, in the ten thousand and above levels - that is pure adrenaline rush. And like any addiction, you start to crave for ever bigger ‘hits’ of the drug (ie for Trump (and me) ever larger audiences).
In October, December, February - it wasn’t really costing Trump ‘anything’ if he lent the campaign a couple of million and his supporters threw in about the same amount - but he got to appear in public almost every day at the huge rallies. Trump knew this is an investment in Trump the brand, these people will loyally buy his next books and watch his next TV shows and some rich ones in the audience will come to buy a condo at the next Trump skyscraper or visit a Trump resort etc... It was ‘marketing’ similar to how we in the consulting racket do conference speakerships - to ‘market’ ourselves so that later we sell books, reports, consulting assignments that trace back to some random person in that one audience in Fort Lauderdale.. For Trump this was a total no-brainer. For very modest ‘cost’ he could run a massive national marketing campagin for Trump the brand - and get that daily hit of audience love, at truly massive euphoric levels (far far above what us telecoms consultants could hope from a subdued engineering audience at some conference haha). We saw it with the brief experiment with the Hitler Salute and Loyalty Pledge to Trump. That is a competent public speaker ‘jamming’ with his audience, off-script, but then wandering into Adolf Hitler territory, by accident. Hitler too was a master at the large rally.
Now we have a very competent public speaker and brilliant TV celebrity personality, addicted to the rare incurable sickness of running for US President (see Mitt Romney, Ron Paul). And to make matters worse, Trump is clearly ‘winning’. He keeps winning most contests and his nearest rival, Ted Cruz turns out to be yet another paper tiger who couldn’t win in his base, the Southern religious states where Cruz was supposed to sweep.
Trump falls into fatally destructive practises in his campaign, partly because of not competent, not professional campaign leadership (Lewandowski) and mostly because Trump genuinely thinks he knows better than most people on most things (horribly dangerous trait, by the way, if he ever was to become President). Almost always, a delusional fanatic like Trump would be extinguished from the race early and never be a viable threat to win it. Trump got to the top inspite of all the traits that would make him a vulnerable general-election candidate and a disaster as President. Partly that speaks of the power of the skills Trump HAS and how well they are suited to the era of 24 hour news and social media, especially Twitter. Trump is literally a reality-TV star. This is Trump’s time. In no other time before, could someone like Trump be taken seriously but here he is. And imagine how much Trump’s ASSETS have to have boosted him, to overcome all the gaffes he has provided us. If Trump had been EXACTLY the same man and ONLY removed the clear gaffes (and I include the other moronic political stunts like skipping the debate just before Iowa or prolonging the feud with Megyn Kelly) - so if he kept to his normal stump speech stuff including building the wall etc - then Trump would have CLINCHED already.
Trump ran up HIS OWN NEGATIVES. Nobody has been this dumb, ever. Ok, Sarah Palin comes close. But yeah, lets say its in Palin territory - although I do think Trump damaged himself worse than Palin did, if we consider the same amount of time, so in any 3 month stretch for Trump. Everything else would have been that well packaged - either by accident or design - for this year’s Republican party infected with the Tea Party disease and hating the establishment - that Trump would have been at 60% of the polling by now and yes, he’d have clinched by now, latest at New York’s primary. Instead Trump is staring at July in Cleveland and the nightmare that on the first ballot he falls 5 votes short, and the Convention chairman declares there will be a second ballot - and Trump loses the nomination.
Trump is an intelligent man yes (while bigoted and often acting in stupid ways, and saying stupid things - mostly that is out of LAZINESS that often accompanies really smart people who get through life a bit too easily). Trump saw in January that he can continue the race and he might win states, he could maybe even win the nomination. Trump then saw after Super Tuesday that he is the clear front-runner and now he could see a clear path to winning the nomination itself.
That is when it changed for Trump. Suddenly Trump hated every delegate lost due to the incompetence of Lewandowski. He is a smart businessman. He correctly identified where is the problem - not popularity, not polling, not winning state votes, primaries or caucuses. Its the DELEGATE hunt. He is throwing away good gains by poor delegate strategy. And then he needed URGENT help by someone totally competent. Like if you find a cancerous tumor, then you don’t want a random little town general practice doctor, if you’re rich, you fly to the best cancer clinics to the best cancer specialists. Problem is, that Cruz has the best ground operation and hired the best staff. Problem compounded by the three-person race, anyone that Cruz had not snatched, was now in the Kasich long-shot campaign whose only hope is a Convention floor fight. There is no competent staff left. Besides, most party operatives hate Trump and what he is doing to their party. So Trump went back in history, found a nearly-retired but very competent older Republican operative, Manafort, who was particularly skilled in the delegate race.
Trump brought Manafort in, and at least superficially that was only to do the delegate part for the Convention. In reality, the whole race is about delegates, so Manafort would near-instantly be able to over-ride anything Lewandowski said or did, simply because ANYTHING impacts Cleveland now. Manafort became Lewandowski’s superior instantly. It didn’t hurt that Lewandowski had to spend time in Florida on the charges of battery against the woman journalist, giving Manafort some very opportune time alone with Trump. And obviously the race run by Lewandowski was not going to win. It was a suicide mission campaign where the suicide vest had a long fuse, to get Trump max visibility and then at the last moment, unbuckle the vest, run away before the suicide vest exploded (destroying much of the Republican party 2016 in the process) - except that Lewandowski didn’t know how to unlock the suicide vest and Trump would go down in that explosion to a humiliating career end.
TRUMP 2.0 THE BUG FIX
Trump needed the way to fix this, and urgently. Manafort saw all this and knew, Trump needs a real campaign manager (Manafort) and he needs REAL competent EXPENSIVE staff to finish the race now, both in terms of the incredibly expensive media market of California (most of Trump’s extra 20 million dollars he lent the campaign now, goes to California TV ad buys where 3 million dollars gets you only one week of TV ad coverage) and of the highly skilled mostly specialist ATTORNEYS Trump needs to hire to manage his ground game in Cleveland and the delegate populating activities in the states going towards Cleveland. These are not cheap recently graduated political science majors out of the University of Wisconsin in Madison. These are SPECIALIST attorneys like William McGinley from Jones Day law firm. I betcha his hours do not come cheaply (nor alone, he’ll be charging tons more for his several associates’ time too) and Manafort needs to book all the available hours the attorney has haha.. Just McGinley’s time alone before his associates has to be worth at least $1,000 per hour (plus expenses all in first class). This will not be cheap.
Manafort also saw that Trump needed discipline. No more late night Tweetstorms. No more calling to TV shows. He loves the big rallies but he has to campaign also in SMALL TOWNS to win some obscure DELEGATES. No more gaffes. Stay on message. Appear presidential. The DELEGATES fear Trump and think he’s a buffoon. That image can still be changed, at least in part. So stay on message. The reporting is that Trump and Manafort talk on the phone 20 times per day. Thats more than once every 30 minutes of every waking hour. Trump literally talks to Manafort between EVERY meeting he has with anyone else. Do you think this is how Trump ‘wanted’ to run a campaign? No. He hates this. He’s never been bossed around in his life like this since he left school. The only reason Trump is willing to be ‘controlled’ like this is - Trump has been convinced - by Manafort - that unless he does it Manafort’s way, Trump is toast (and he might be toast even this way, there are no guarantees).
We have seen a few weeks of Trump under a new discipline. And this was no fluke. This is Trump 2.0. We just read on Politico today again, stories that Trump is trying to build bridges to the Republican party. He cannot win if they truly stack the deck against him. H can’t win their trust by bullying them like some building contractor. The only way Trump gets the party to give him a reasonably fair shake is - if Trump plays NICE. He HAS to win their neutrality if not their support. He NEVER thought that was ever necessary. This is all pure Manafort. Trump has toned down the attacks on his rivals and his victory speech after New York was the first time Trump sounded like ‘normal’ politicians (in a good way) ie referring to Cruz not as Lyin’ Ted but as Senator Cruz.. That level of respect goes a LONG way to convince DELEGATES on the fence about whether Trump is a disaster in November or he can be the Republican Presidential nominee and not ruin the party’s chances.
Note Trump plays the normal nastiest negotiation tactics as he teaches in his book the Art of the Deal. And now look at Manafort - the same power negotiation tools. He refers to Trump as ‘Donald’ by first name when ALL in the Trump organization ALWAYS refer to him as ‘Mr Trump’ including Lewandowski. This is basics of power games. Only Manafort is seen on an equal pane with Trump (this was all insisted upon by Manafort before he accepted this seemingly-doomed gig). In the meeting where Manafort took control, Manafort sat at the head of the table and ran the meeting, Lewandowski - nominally the Campaign Manager who used to be in charge - sat at a far chair near the door and barely said anything. Trump stopped by at the meeting to bless Manafort’s full control of the campaign but didn’t stay - again signalling its fully in Manafort’s hands. One of Lewandowski’s minions quit when he found he has a new boss (and new layer between him and Trump). There was a palace coup in the Trump campaign and yes, Trump himself has accepted that Manafort gets to manage TRUMP himself.
If you’ve seen the movie Game Change about how McCain selected Sarah Palin (great movie and apparently very close to reality) Palin grew every more resentful of that ‘handling’ that her political advisors forced her to behave to. It will not come easily to Trump. But make no mistake, if Manafort cannot keep Trump to Manafort’s straight-jacket, Trump will fail. And Trump is smart enough (vs Palin) to UNDERSTAND this is now an uncomfortable ROLE that Trump has to play for a few months up to the Convention. Trump 2.0 is a bug-fix. Trump had descended into massively self-destructive habits while Lewandowski ran his amateour campaign but now Manafort will do his best to rescue this, a ship which was taking water but was not yet sinking. It can be saved.
Manafort can do nothing about all the silly stuff Trump has already said. But like with doctors in emergencies the first rule is, do no further harm. So Trump is under gag order. He had to sit out a few days where Manafort read him the full riot act and instituted the new rules of total discipline in the messaging. Then Trump has been let out - under a tight leash - only in controlled situations and STRICTLY on message. No more gaffes. Any gaffe wastes the campaign’s time and effort putting out a new fire, when all time should be spent now on winning the delegates. As much as Trump loves the school-yard-bantering, that has to stop and not one unplanned utterance on any topic about anything else. For those of Trump’s passionate supporters there is tons of red meat that Trump knows how to serve, lets build the wall, now whose gonna pay for it (Mexico!). Trump doesn’t need to go insult the Lithuanians next or the Buddhists or the Samoans. He has a litany of topics that can be revisited (and no doubt, Manafort has also ruled out many of the dumbest things said like deporting all 11 million or banning all Muslims from entering the USA or arming Japan with nukes or quitting NATO etc. Incidentially, I gotta catch a fresh full Trump stump speech to hear what is still ‘allowed’ in Manafort-era Trump 2.0 stump speech. The wall is no doubt there but I wonder which of the recent staples of Trump’s speech are now out). The peace-making with Megyn Kelly is one of those things Trump also HAD to do and did. If there still were debates scheduled, you can be sure Manafort would have Trump there, acting like a nice boy, visibly biting his lip in anger, but not rising to any taunts and maintaining his cool at least superficially. Luckily for Trump (most unluckily for Cruz) there are no more debates.
Expect far more controlled media appearances with shorter duration interviews probably with pre-approved questions or at least topic areas, designed to present Trump as a moderate, considerate, humble, intelligent, thoughtful person, rather than the bombastic bastard that he is. Trump’s luck (Manafort’s luck) is that Trump is in so high demand as a celebrity, there will be no shortage of media outlets willing to play this game of Trump 2.0 rebranding. Just don’t expect him to call into Morning Joe every other day.
Trump 1.0 knowledge of the issues was wafer-thin. Scratch the surface and you’re usually past what Trump actually knows. Because again, he is a fast talker and fast thiner, smart guy, knows a little bit of something - plus he has a good memory, he read something on Twitter (from some White Supremacist loon) and he’ll rattle off a series of claims, statistics, examples - some totally made up, some wrongly remembered facts, some repeated lies which Trump thinks are true - but he’ll do so many of those, nobody catches up. So he gets away with it. Except that when it gets to real issues, the more thoughful experts, pundits, party elders - DELEGATES - they will know. They know what is the nuclear triad. They know what is Common Core. They know what is a trade war. They will NEED to hear that Trump grasps the real issues. He currently doesn’t. He never bothered to learn because he never intended to finish this run. Now he desperately wants to win. And now he HAS to learn. He is on that same crash-course we saw Sarah Palin in the movie Game Change. But differing from Palin, Trump is smart and does know that Africa is a continent, so Trump doesn’t start from grade-school level incompetence, he starts from a good high school level knowledge, and then builds from there.
So Manafort must have hired Trump a series of policy coaches - conservatives - to teach him about how to answer the abortion question (punish the woman????) etc. Policy coaches on foreign policy and national security. Policy coaches on state rights, on religious issues, on poverty, on taxes, on regulations etc etc etc. Trump 2.0 - once he is done with his policy boot camp in about 3 months - by the convention - will be FAR more intelligent-sounding than he is now. Again, Manafort cannot erase all the dumb things Trump has said on tape, but at least going forward, he cannot say more of those things, else he’ll never win the DELEGATES. The race after the Convention, that is a totally separate issue anyway. Right now, Trump has to learn to talk Republican, without any New York accent.
What they say about Trump is that he is a fast learner. This is a steep learning curve and Trump will still make the occasional mistake (haha the attacks on 7-Eleven, that was a pure speaking gaffe, anyone could do that, but it was funny) but at least the deliberate angering of any voter groups (hey, Catholics, listen to this what I just wrote about your Pope..) that has now all ended with Trump 2.0. And once Trump starts to get to terms with some topics, expect yes, policy papers. Like a real candidate. Then Trump will do policy speeches on those specific topics - via telepromptered prepared written speech, not departing from the script. He might perhaps even take press questions briefly to show he has now learned that given subject under Manafort’s tutelage. Then come the tax returns. Trump never intended to release them. Expect them released, probably sooner rather than later. He has to undo as much of the damage that currently deters ANY DELEGATES from going with Trump. Its not enough to win in Connecticut and Pennsylvania and Oregon and Jersey and California, he also has to convert uncommitted delegates to support him on the first ballot. They have to see a different Trump. That is the illusion now being generated by Trump 2.0. Its still a fraud but a less racist less hostile less juvenile fraud.
Then there are the events. As they say, the only thing a candidate cannot buy more of, is his own time. Its the most valuable resource Trump has. He loves doing huge rallies. They are great for his ego. They do not significantly now help his voter turnout anymore but his fans of course love him for them. Many who show up are not going to vote for him but show up because they are fans. Meanwhile that is time that is wasted from doing events that matter. Events in small rural congressional districts where equally many delegates are awarded, but there is no big venue. Those voters are mostly ignored. They will appreciate Trump’s visit even more than those voters living in the big cities who see all sorts of rock stars every week. When the race is about DELEAGATES then these are VITAL stops. Like in the New York race as we now saw, for the first time the Manafort operation in full swing.
Take the example of Patchogue Long Island, New York. It is an infamous spot for the racist hate crime, gang murder by whites of Marcelo Lucero, eight years ago. The locals urged the Trump campaign to not go to that spot, because of the symbolism. But this is a Republican race. Its a deeply Hispanic and DEMOCRATIC district. But it awards the same number of Republican DELEGATES now, as any Republican-voting district in up-state parts of New York State. Its easy to go have a big rally in a Republican district. But the SMART play is to go to this district where the Republican WHITES are a small minority community that is now facing years of fear out of reprisals in the aftermath of the racial crimes. Those Republicans feel threatened and isolated in a Hispanic neighborhood. That is smart politics to go meet with them and secure their votes in that district - as Trump did. Yes, its ugly on the racist political axle yes, but within Republican party DELEGATE hunt this was no big Trumpian rally for the TV cameras. Trump could have had far bigger audiences elsewhere. This was smart politics to go pick up DELEGATES. Trump for the first time since Iowa and New Hamsphire, has held events in New York in smaller towns now. Not because he can’t fill a big stadium but because if its done SMARTLY, those smaller-town smaller-events can boost victories in more obscure congressional districts with the same DELEGATE count.
On topics Trump always talks about. I expect Trump would be steered to stop talking about the polling. He loves to brag about how big his polling leads are and celebrate every poll that comes out with him ahead, and then bitch about any poll who might find him in second place calling that poll total crap. Here’s the massive minefield this sets Trump into. If he defines himself as a winner by polling - then he is INHERENTLY the loser in the ultimate poll - against Hillary (where both Cruz and Kasich score better now than Trump and obviously Hillary is then ahead into November). Again Manafort cannot erase the past but Trump has to stop bragging about his polling. Brag about his won states if he wants to, but not the polling. EVERY amateour political operative knows you DOWNGRADE the expectations not shout about them. If you have a big lead, you say the real internal polling you have says its a far tighter race. If the public poll was right, you can claim you over-performed. If the public poll was wrong and it was tigher than they said, you still look ok. Its utterly stupid to draw attention to the polls where you are ahead - EXCEPT when you GAIN that lead. That is when you celebrate polls - when you are coming from behind. Trump is (again) a novice at this and making totally stupid mistakes in Trump 1.0. Expect the polling to be one of many taboo subjects with Trump 2.0.
Then on his plans and proposals so far, they’re total bunk. Sometimes his policies have been in direct contradition of what he says in his stump speeches etc. Not written by Trump obviously, not really even much bothered by Trump. But now, those will be all revisited and SIGNIFICANTLY revised, deepened and sometimes drastically altered into new, smarter ‘generic Republican’ views very much on mainstream GOP agenda. Trump won’t try to (nor need to) claim to be a very ultra-conservative Republican at this stage (like how Romney felt, that the party thought he was too centrist) but Trump needs to sound like he’s a rational human being. The policy papers - and Trump’s references to those issues in the near future - will evolve to be VERY ‘mainstream’ Republican like for example on abortion. Trump will say easily, comfortably, I am pro-life but with exceptions to the life of the mother or incest or rape. If asked any further, he can easily elaborate that position just like any competent Republican pro-lifer candidate today. No more that farce of 5 separate Abortion answers in three days.
So for example the tax plan, expect it to evolve to be far less the ludicrous imaginary math version he now has that has fiscal conservatives tearing their hair out. How can a ‘businessman’ suggest this kind of bullshit. But that was written by some volunteer political lackie in the Trump 1.0 campaign when winning was not a goal. It was just website fodder and irrelevant to the run. Now its BAGGAGE that hurts in the DELEGATE hunt. Trump needs a new, revised, intelligent politically conservative budget plan, one that could get at least nominal approval from Paul Ryan. That means Trump cannot write it, neither can Lewandowski’s minions. It takes SERIOUS political competence to write a reasonably conservative tax and budget plan, that addresses current political issues and yet doesn’t balloon the deficit - while including the two magic words - tax cuts, and increased military spending. And yes, by the time Trump roll this plan out, he can rationally explain how some money is squeezed from somewhere that is not magical ‘Mexico pays/China pays’ extortion, and which is not closing loopholes or ending government waste. Trump will soon have a plan that talks about which (hated by conservative) departments will feel the axe the hardest - expect education, EPA, IRS to be among the favorites to see big cuts to pay for some of Trump’s wish-list. This type of writing takes SERIOUS political strategy competence (think Mary Matalin/Steve Shmidt level) that again Trump needs to hire - it won’t be written by Manafort haha, he has a campaign to run that is a total disaster thanks to Trump’s self-created minefield.
The part I am half-expecting is the surprising apology. I think the single biggest sign Trump could do to help convince doubters that there lives a human being inside the monster we’ve seen as Trump, is a genuine apology for something. Maybe something he already said or then if he does now something stupid in the coming weeks (almost inevitable inspite of Manafort’s tight leash). It is 100% against Trump’s nature to ever apologize for anything. If we see Trump suddenly apologizing for something, then we know, he’s been totally tamed (temporarily) by Manafort, and yes, this is a new act played by the talented reality TV star, Donald J Trump the professional con-man.
(Incidentally as Ted Cruz is also struggling with the same problem, the Republican party base can’t trust him and dislike him immensely - it would go a long way if Ted could bring himself around to apologizing to Mitch McConnell for calling him a liar and they could have a chance to bury those hatchets. It would be FAR more useful for Cruz to discover his redemption and rebirth as the nice party guy, than AFTER Manafort gets Trump to succeed in that).
Also expect some version of a Sister Souljah moment where some hate group says or does something that Trump 1.0 would gleefully retweet and celebrate - and suddenly sensible Trump 2.0 will come out with a thoughtful Wall Street Journal Letter to the Editor or some specific speech at some location of deep symbolic meaning (that Pettus bridge in Selma Alabama for example) where Trump will denounce some clearly White Supremacist and obviously racist cause or act or viewpoint. Trump has so much to attone for, he might do this more than once but I do expect at least one such moment relatively soon.
Not everything ‘reasonable’ by Trump 2.0 has happened - yet - but if so much of it HAS happened, then yes, all of the ‘reasonable’ things will be done. Trump is well motivated by the word ‘winning’. If this is what it takes from Trump for 3 months to turn this turkey into a winner - he will do it all. Its an act - but so was Trump 1.0. He will simply pivot. In rough terms here are main areas of the change:
ROUGH ESTIMATE OF CHANGES IN TRUMP 2.0 BUG-FIX
Campaign Aspect . . . . . . Trump 1.0 . . . . . . Trump 2.0
Demeanor . . . . . . . . . . . . Juvenile . . . . . . . . Presidential
Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Erratic . . . . . . . . . Consistent
Speeches . . . . . . . . . . . . . Spontaneous . . . . . Scripted
Talk shows . . . . . . . . . . . . Call in all time . . . Rare pre-announced visits only
Questions in Interviews . . Ignore . . . . . . . . . . Respond
Interruptions . . . . . . . . . . . Constantly . . . . . . Rarely
Respect to Rivals . . . . . . . Taunting . . . . . . . . Formal
Budget . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Shoe-string . . . . . . Massive
TV ads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Very rare . . . . . . . . Massive
TV ad tone . . . . . . . . . . . . Mostly negative . . Mostly negative
Mass events . . . . . . . . . . . Daily . . . . . . . . . . . Less, few per week
Small events . . . . . . . . . . . Occasionally . . . . . Daily
Policy Speeches . . . . . . . . Very rare . . . . . . . . Several per month, teleprompter
Stump Speeches . . . . . . . . Rambling jazz . . . . Scripted but memorized ‘best hits’
Audience questions . . . . . Frequent . . . . . . . . . No more (unless scripted/planted)
Talk to press at events . . . Occasionally . . . . . Rarely (planned)
Political Staff . . . . . . . . . . Novices . . . . . . . . . Experts
Polling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Only public polls . . Hire internal polling
Policy Papers . . . . . . . . . . Barely any . . . . . . . Deep, detailed
Tax Returns . . . . . . . . . . . Delay delay . . . . . . Release soon 5 years
Wall / Mexico pays . . . . . yes . . . . . . . . . . . . . yes
Grow military . . . . . . . . . . yes . . . . . . . . . . . . . yes
Deport 11 million . . . . . . . yes . . . . . . . . . . . . . (no longer volunteer but yes if asked)
Block Muslims . . . . . . . . . yes . . . . . . . . . . . . . no
Exit NATO . . . . . . . . . . . . yes . . . . . . . . . . . . . no
Friends with Putin . . . . . . . yes . . . . . . . . . . . . . no
Fund Planned Parenthood . yes . . . . . . . . . . . . . no
End Obamacare . . . . . . . . . yes . . . . . . . . . . . . . yes
Nukes for Japan . . . . . . . . . yes . . . . . . . . . . . . . no
Abortion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . confused . . . . . . . . clear pro-life with exceptions
Feud with Megyn Kelly . . . yes . . . . . . . . . . . . . no
Feud with GOP . . . . . . . . . yes . . . . . . . . . . . . . no
Feud with Cruz . . . . . . . . . yes . . . . . . . . . . . . . yes but more gently, like front-runner
Feud with Kasich . . . . . . . yes . . . . . . . . . . . . . no more
Feud with Hillary . . . . . . . yes . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hell yes
Feud with Bernie . . . . . . . yes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . no more
Unforced gaffes . . . . . . . . near-daily . . . . . . . . almost never
Twitter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Twitterfloods . . . . . Occasional campaign promo Tweets
Claim self-funding . . . . . . yes . . . . . . . . . . . . . (no longer volunteer but admit no if asked)
Fund-raising . . . . . . . . . . . passive online . . . . . active via email and also some events
Celebrate polling . . . . . . . always . . . . . . . . . . . almost never (unless specifically asked)
Victory speeches . . . . . . . taunting rivals . . . . . respectful
Above estimate of changes from Trump 1.0 to Trump 2.0 in April 2016 by Tomi T Ahonen, April 21, 2016
This list may be freely shared and quoted
Note what you read in Trump 2.0 is ‘generic’ candidate who is a front-runner. It could fit near perfectly for Romney or McCain and excepting for policy positions and specific rivals, mostly would fit Hillary also now.
So we are witnessing now a bizarre pivot that almost never has happened in US Presidential politics at this level or this late. Trump is pivoting from the loud-mouth fake pretender candidate-spoiler into the serious front-runner candidate who wants to seem Presidential. Then as this is still only for the Republican nomination, whoever wins this nomination this year cannot win in the general election, then there has to be a new pivot - into Trump 3.0 - much like Romney did into Romney 2.0 in 2012 at and after the Convention - to become the more moderate general election candidate. And yes, if Trump ever was to win the White House, that Trump 3.0 would still be a fake, the real Trump would only be seen in Trump 4.0, once he was sworn in as President and boy, that would be a scary time to be a human being.
Trump needs 57% of remaining ..
Cruz mathematically locked out..
RNC meetings this week are key..
If Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Virginia GOPers on the ground are key to see if Trump could win the Electoral college.
They need to buy Trump 2 and 3.
I seriously doubt they buy new changes or pivots.
speech writers...and teleprompters...wow.
one ?...
I don't think Tim Pawlenty ever led in the polls like Bachmann or Rudy G..
maybe his home state...
s/
Posted by: steve epstein | April 21, 2016 at 11:15 AM
Hi steve
Haha on Pawlenty yeah, I guess you're right on that.
On the the Republican delegates, yeah, I agree that most won't buy the changes or pivots because most have long since solidly made up their minds about Trump. Some love him and nothing he can do will now make them quit him even as he pivots to sounding just like any other politician. And those who hate him 'know' how much he is a fraud and won't ever be convinced otherwise. Thats at least 80% of the delegates maybe 90% who tend to be very interested in Republican party matters so they are far more paying attention to Trump and the race than normal Republican voters.
But there also are genuinely undecided or persuadable voters - far more among Republicans than Democrats or Independents - about Trump. Its that small group - couple of hundred people at max and most who are already committed in the voting - who Manafort is now targeting. PLUS its the various rules and credentials etc committees and their votes - where again a few sitting on the fence - remembering its a mutual hate club where Cruz is ALSO hated - who can swing significant rules one way or the other.
If come July Cruz is the 'less hated' nominee and Trump remains the 'most hated' one, then its FAR harder for Trump to win. But NOW - in April - where Cruz just recently ruled out any apologies to Mitch McConnell and continues his pure outsider gambit - here is a REAL opportunity for Trump to gain that weird middle ground not as the favorite Kasich but not as hated as Cruz. It could well be the decisive thing. And for Trump ANYTHING is an act, this is just as easy for him to play as the boss in Apprentice or the Hitler-Wannable in Trump 1.0. He will now put on the act of the candidate everybody hoped Jeb Bush would turnout to be - because Trump can ACT the role of any role within the Republican sphere and probably most in the Democratic sphere too haha. He will be what they hoped Jeb was going to be. Total party loyalist, team player, full middle-of-the-road mainstream not one liberal idea thrown in, total standard Republican centrist. Tax cuts, pro life, small government, bigger military, bomb Iran, send more money to Israel, drill baby drill, pipelines, end Obamacare, defund Planned Parenthood, Reagan was a Saint, Cheney was telling the truth, W was not a dimwit. The full shebang. Trump knows this song by heart, he's been singing this version too, for a decade at various Republican events. He just needed a TV director to tell him which role he now needed to play in this next scene and Manafort was able to tell him that.
Haha I don't think I mentioned speech writers, but even one of those will be needed because Trump can't waste his time writing his teleprompter speech drafts, he has to spend all his waking hours left, when he's not in front of an audience, now studying for the policy stuff. Trump is in political boot camp. So yeah, with his money a standard Republican junior speech writer should already now be on Manafort's staff to redo Trump's current speeches and work on his big policy speeches to come.
on the 57% remaining - note its not 57% of the vote, its 57% of the delegates and because of Republican winner-take-all rules and as Kasich stubbornly stays in the race, those will come with far less than 50% of the vote... On the Democratic side its the worse, because some of the unpledged super delegates are actually already confirmed for Hillary but have not publically said so for whatever reasons and thus Bernie would actually need to win even more than 77% of the votes and delegates to count for that hidden advantage that Hillary holds (and only she knows how big it is).
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | April 21, 2016 at 12:31 PM
oh no
Did I read that wrong and Trump has abandoned 2.0 and gone back to Trump 1.0? He's apparently just now on the Today Show live, and taking questions via Twitter? Isn't that exactly asking for trouble..
Part of me says, stay calm Tomi, he is now comfortable in the newest Nice Trump act, and part of me says.. there will be news made, he can't do open questions from audiences without something utterly Trumptacular that destroys this fragile Trump 2.0 and plunges us all back into the darkest ages of Trump 1.0.. haha. meaning massive crocodile tears from me if I was wrong with this blog..
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | April 21, 2016 at 02:01 PM
Short answer:
Anyone not a total retard would have planned to be competent from the beginning.
This is why Trump went bankrupt four times. He's essentially stupid, he just had other people's money to play with.
Posted by: Michael Z. Williamson | April 21, 2016 at 04:45 PM
Hi everybody
Gosh that was PAINFUL. I just watched the Indiana stump speech from yesterday. GOSH that is aweful. (and remember, I am a former professional debate coach fully trained on all forms of public speaking and judging their competitive events too, not just the debate part so this is also spoken not just as a political news junkie but as a current pro public speaker and past pro speech coach) Gosh that was aweful. He is just incredibly stupidly amazingly painstakingly bad because there is NO DISCIPLINE. I several times wanted to stop the video and just 'walk out' on it - a likely Presidential candidate in a stump speech in full - gosh mostly I couldn't stop watching anyone if I started, even someone as boring as Jeb Bush or John Kasich. But this was AWEFUL. Oh, did I mention.
AWEFUL.
Ok He was AWEFUL. But yes, its been many months since I last saw a full Trump stump speech. This is clearly reheated best hits with almost nothing fresh, Trump is like the Rolling Stones partly just going through the motions on Brown Sugar or Jumping Jack Flash. But yes, I do see evolution. SIGNIFICANT steps while its PAINFULLY AWEFUL. But yeah, Trump was FAR less hostile, mostly nice, could not hold it all in, he did his Lying Ted once, the Crooked Hillary twice, the sniping at the crooked GOP election and the evil press corps - but even with the press he did it now with much more smiling and didn't go there with the wishes of violence at the press. Its clearly evolution - but not from monkey to human. Not even monkey to Gro Magnon or whatever it was before Homo Sapiens. Its baby steps from monkey to orangutan or whatever was the slightest step on that path. You know what I mean.
Gosh it was AWEFUL.
So yeah. Some of the hatred is out. Nothing about Muslims (good). None of the slightest urgings to violence (startling difference, he was interrupted about six times, not the slightest hints of urging violence). No new surprising themes of new demographics to demonize.
So much of the STUPID silly IDIOTIC wasteful pointless drivel is there that cannot be in the least bit useful for the Trump 2.0 campaign and cannot help in any way repair relations with the GOP like why is the moron still attacking Jeb? Yes. Its what two months now since Jeb dropped out? Any SMART politician would instantly stop attacking a former rival when they drop out. After that you ONLY want to seem nice to their former supporters to get them to come to you. And now, with all the trouble with the GOP, any smart politician would invest time and effort to at least appear to mend fences and ideally get Jeb to endorse. But instead the pinhead keeps attacking Jeb. He NEEDS a speech coach and Manafort needs to listen to a stump speech and then help in its 2.0 bug-fix. The whole Jeb-bashing part was pure (nearly trivial-sized) damage to Trump with no upside and only downside. WHY WHY WHY you moron why are you doing this.
Then there are the typical Trumpian fairy tales. A new one for me was that Trump will fix the drug problem of America with Trump magic. So he'll cure addiction somehow from the White House (no details of how, its typical Trump fairy tale). The momentarily solved Obamacare replacement is now back to unspecified glorious fix. Trupian fairy tales. He promised to defeat ISIS instantaneously. Yeah. Trumpian fairy tales. And yes, he still insists Mexico will pay for the wall (by the power of Trumpian fairy tales).
Then he still happily celebrates Putin in his speech. How weird and un-American is that? This is all utter bullshit for the large National Security wing of the Republican party. He doesn't now talk about ending NATO just changing it from protecting Europe from Trump's buddy Putin to rather focusing on fighting ISIS (which is in the Middle East where NATO is not, does Trump know its another CONTINENT that is not part of Europe?) but yeah, at least he is not disbanding NATO. Yet I would think NATO countries would feel just a teeny-weeny GIANT BIT freaked out if the US President seriously suggested that NATO be refocused away from Putin right about now, funk soul brother. Oh my god he is a raving lunatic when he is allowed to talk in an unscripted way. Like he loves Indiana. Fine, that is ok pandering to a local audience. Two mentions of Hoosiers is one too many. But why then suddenly profess his love of .. New Hampshire? Yeah, he did win there for the first time (it is also a reminder that Trump DIDN'T win in Iowa.. why even bring this up) but gosh, idiot, Mr Smart - if you want to make these gullible lowly educated Indiana voters to think you really do love Indiana for some reason - then don't go around saying how much you love New Hamsphire and how much you love New York.. come on, genius. Shut the fuck up about the OTHER states that you love. If you want to do the very plastic-sounding insincere I love this state crap, then don't mention OTHER STATES. This is simply lack of DISCIPLINE. Did you forget Trump, that you are now in Indiana. Did you only win New Hampshire why do you remind us about that 30 states later? There are nuggets of stuff that is 'red meat' to Republicans (plus plenty that fell flat such as his love of tariffs and then of course the instant contradiction that Trump also apparently loves free trade) but the speech organization (utter lack of it) and worst the delivery, flat and nearly Sarah Palinesquely bizarre - is unforgivable. A novice in his first rodeo could maybe be forgiven for this kind of rambling nonsense drivel but not the front-runner whose done more than 200 times this same stump speech already - and who has had decades of public speaking at various Republican events before he ran for office starting last June. Unforgivable. A total failure as a grade. I'd grade this as an F for Failure.
But the TONE is less hostile, less belligerent and mostly sounded 'gentle' and definitely upbeat and happier than the angry Trump I last heard in somewhere early February I think a full stump speech. I do see evolution but its a tiny step. And boy it is AWEFUL as a speech and HORRIBLY badly delivered by clearly a gifted speaker who is essentially pissing at his audience from the stage, utterly giving them pure shit while he could do so much better.
Did he connect? Yes. Was it a loving audience yes. Was it euphoric, not really. At times he nearly had them at stunned silence several times. They did at times spontaneously get into building-the-wall chants, and Trump wisely left the Wall and Mexico Pays as his final song to play, as the triumphant climax but even that was delivered flat and to very poor rhythm. It may be that somehow it was an off night or Trump might be having lack of sleep or is just about getting a cold or something, but if this is normal Trump stump now, it is AWEFUL. He needs HELP URGENTLY. He needs DISCIPLINE. The speech needs to be totally rewritten and brought to tight FORM, not this free-form jazz odyssey. If he wants to recognize people in the audience or thank someone, do that at the beginning, don't let those things break your rhythm and the dynamic structure of a speech that builds to its crescendo. This is WEAK. LAME and gosh, it is PAINFUL.
It is literally the worst stump speech I remember hearing of ANY front-runner presumptive candidate or actual candidate EVER. It was truly AWEFUL and its so much more so to me professionally as I can see the TALENT UTTERLY WASTED. Lazy stupid boy who is utterly ill prepared and trying to wing it. AWEFUL. Shame on you Trump.
But I would guess, judging by the train wreck that was Trump 1.0 that Manafort has only done a first quick edit of the stump speech ie a Trump 1.5 on that, the stump speech has not yet gotten the Trump 2.0 treatment. Manafort has FAR bigger fires to put out first (he is in Florida now working the refs at the GOP meeting). This stump speech will not in any meaningful way make matters worse for Trump while the actual gains are a tiny fraction of what Obama or even gosh Jeb Bush would do in one hour at a rally in Indiana. Even Rand Paul for his permanent ill-preparedness would do better stump speeches than this. AWEFUL.
But note Trump change in plans (Trump 2.0) he was not scheduled to go to Indiana, he was supposed to go I think to Pennsylvania but Manafort knows how vital the winner-take-all state of Indiana is, if they can take it and deny Cruz the state, they are close to a certain 1,237 delegates but if Trump loses Indiana then their task in the last states like California is FAR bigger. Indiana right now is a big prize (for both sides). Also apparently the Stop Trump movement has skipped the five next state next week and will do their next big attacks in Indiana.
So yeah. There are (some) signs that perhaps a Trump 2.0 strategy is being deployed onto the stump speech. Or no, thats not fair. There are signs. But not enough. Trump's discipline we saw after the New York victory and the past days on Twitter and calling into talk shows - that type of discpline - that has not reached his stump speech at all. I do think this will come relatively soon, say a week or so. The stump speech should get a total makeover and no more bashing of Jeb for example.. gosh why on earth..
So yeah... its interesting
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | April 21, 2016 at 05:51 PM
So his current state would be more like 2.0 pre-alpha :p
I can't wait to see the developments of the dc madam subplot
Posted by: grogxd | April 22, 2016 at 04:26 AM
Trump can't go from a loose cannon and a rebel character straight into a responsible, politically correct, presidential character. There must be some sort of transition period in order to seem more credible. This is why version 1.5 is necessary. This is why he still brings up his old idiotic ideas but to a lesser degree now. The attack on Jeb Bush is just his bombastic way of comparing his own greatness versus Bush's looser ways. But that will fade away too.
I tried to project his path to getting 1237 delegates and it seems to me that it is very likely that without Indiana he won't get them.
Trump needs 391 delegates in order to reach 1237. He absolutely needs California's 172 delegates and New Jersey's 51 delegates. According to RCP he is up in California by 9% and in NJ by 27%. And I think it is safe to say that Trump will get all of Maryland's 38 delegates and all of Pennsylvania's 17 delegates. So assuming he gets these 172 + 51 + 17 + 38 = 278 delegates, he still needs an additional 113 delegates. If he gets 20 in Connecticut, 13 in Delaware, 11 in Rhode Island and 22 in West Virginia, that will give him another 20 + 13 + 11 + 22 = 68 delegates. That cuts his magic number to 45. He most likely won't get any delegates in Nebraska, Montana and South Dakota. He will get a few delegates in Washington, Oregon and New Mexico but that is most likely less than 45 taken together (probably around 30 delegates). So if he wins Indiana, that will very likely put Trump over the top. Here is the table for reference:
States Total Delegates Trump's projected share
Connecticut 28 20
Delaware 16 13
Maryland 38 38
Pennsylvania 17 17
Rhode Island 19 11
Indiana 57 0
Nebraska 36 0
West Virginia 34 22
Oregon 28 10
Washington 44 10
California 172 172
Montana 27 0
New Jersey 51 51
New Mexico 24 10
South Dakota 29 0
------------------------------------
Total 624 374
Posted by: cornelius | April 22, 2016 at 06:35 AM
And my beautiful table got screwed again. The first number is the total delegates available in each state and the second number is the delegates that I think Trump will get in each state.
Posted by: cornelius | April 22, 2016 at 06:39 AM
good one cornelius
So Trump won't finish with 624,374 total delegates after all?
(in silly mood, very down with Prince's death)
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | April 22, 2016 at 07:48 AM
Tomi, I know you got it right, but for the sake of clarification, I think trump will get 374 delegates in the remaining contests if he does not carry Indiana. So I think Indiana is going to tell us whether we'll have a brokered convention or not.
Posted by: cornelius | April 22, 2016 at 03:38 PM
And published this morning is an article that confirms my previous two posts.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/04/22/indianas_pivotal_role_in_2016_gop_race_130361.html
Basically Trump absolutely needs Indiana and he's likely not going to get it. So we'll have a brokered convention indeed. But Trump will most likely get about 1200 delegates, so although technically GOP could deny him, practically it will be impossible. Barring any stupid mistakes on his part, Trump will be the Republican nominee.
Posted by: cornelius | April 22, 2016 at 05:47 PM
Ups, it seems I spoke too soon. Trump indeed has a chance to carry Indiana. RCP just posted a new poll that shows Trump up by 6% in Indiana. So Trump has a good chance of getting those 1237 delegates after all.
Posted by: cornelius | April 22, 2016 at 09:16 PM
So it seems they are in fact working on making him more presidential:
Paul Manafort, Donald Trump chief: ‘You’ll see a real different guy’
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/apr/22/paul-manafort-donald-trump-chief-youll-see-real-di/
Posted by: grogxd | April 22, 2016 at 09:49 PM
hi gang
(gosh I really felt the loss of Prince.. so much music that so very often were my absolute fave songs, not just by Prince himself but the countless fab superhits he penned for others like Manic Monday for the Bangles, I Feel for You for Chaka Chan, Sugar Walls for Sheena Easton, Nasty Girl for Vanity (gosh, how many times is that song being done by other artists, I saw recently Beyonce does it on stage), Jungle Love for The Time, The Glamorous Life for Sheila E, Sex Shooter for Apollonia... so so so many great songs by Prince that were usually the biggest hit of that artist who often themselves were song-writers. And hey, I'm no fan of Nothing Compares to You by Sinead O'Connor but that song, one of the bestselling songs of all time is now too much defining her as an artist, she has stopped playing the song most of her fans most deeply identify with her... ouch indeed. But gosh, rock anthems like Stevie Nicks's Stand Back (yes written by PRINCE not the fellow song-writing masters at her band, Fleetwood Mac).
Anyway.. yeah lotsa happenin' in the final stretch time of the primary battles.
On the pivot, its yes now confirmed by Manafort and he was delivering a strongly dischordiant message at the Republican confab while Trump was trying to tone it down at his stump speeches. There is plenty to do to get Trump fully in line with 2.0 but its CLEAR he is on that path (and many more conservatives are NOW waking up to the reality, that this Trump show 1.0 was a con-job, a fraud, and the big switch is now coming. They are not gonna be happy campers, when they see they bought someone even more flipfloppy than the master of flipflops, Mitt Romney).
Some notes, thanks cornelius on the Indiana polling. RCP now shows a second poll nearly same finding. Its a tight race with Trump ahead - it means, under normal Trump 1.0 conditions, a 6 or 7 point race is something - in regions where Cruz generally has a good chance like Indiana - that Cruz should be able to climb above that lead. But how about during Trump 2.0 when now, Trump is led by competent campaign management - and obviously treating Indiana like a must-win state which he never bothered to do before New York with any of the early contests (before Manafort).
BTW this opens room for a surprise out of Tuesday. Its possible that one of Kasich or Cruz campaigns has seen internal polling for one state where they could pick up a worthwhile number of delegates and they could do some intense, but strictly locally-targeted campaighing (obviously if both then this should be in different states of the 5) where Trump cannot afford to bother with those peanuts at the cost of Indiana. Cruz has a great ground game in Indiana already well built, he doesn't have to 'camp' in Indiana, he could fly out for a visit or two (and Kasich has no bother with Indiana, he should not go there at all). We could see a surprise on Tuesday in one of the 5 states (but don't bet your life on it, its still a long-shot).
Ok a few other observations. Veepstakes. I don't often agree with Bill O'Reilly but even a broken watch is correct twice in any day. Bill has given a great suggestion that we've also mentioned on this discussions in the past - New Mexico's Governor Susana Martinez.
Now, would she be willing to do it, thats the FAR bigger issue, she could see her popularity plummet with the poison of the Trump brand (haha, like marrying Nokia with the poison of Windows) but if she were to take it, a Trump-Martinez ticket, THAT yes would have some legs and help bring the horrible Hispanic gap smaller and also help give a cover for some women to pick this ticket ahead of Hillary. Plus she'd put New Mexico, a light-blue-leaning but mostly still purple state, into play and probably win her home state. Non-white non-man who is IN government, a Governor, if Susana Martinez had been in the race among the 17 this year, at least on paper she'd seem like a 'nice fit' candidate to tick those boxes the party likes and wants, especially to balance the fierce negatives of Trump. Now... would she be willing to do it (and would Trump want someone like her? No gossip about it at all, so Trump probably is testing out Chris Christie for example now, on the stump).
Oh, then on the stupidity of citing polling.. here we go again, Trump hasn't gotten that memo yet apparently from Manafort because this time that argument is REALLY damaging to Trump - before the Convention has nominated him. Don't bring up the polling lead in the context of Hillary - you are losing and the trendline is WORSE not better, if looking recently vs distant polling. The RCP average is at about 10 points against Trump. Idiot. If Hillary wanted to throw some sand into the not-so-smoothly-running machine at Trumpolandia - she should make the point in any question about that - that she actually leads Trump in head-to-heads by 10 points and actually Cruz does much better. Haha that would get HER in the news instantly, it would make Trump squirm in his press interviews because everybody would be asking him about it - it would put Cruz in a difficult place to have to accept praise from hated Hillary but Cruz wants that message out yes, he does better in the head-to-heads... If I was a partisan politician on Team Blue, I'd urge her to go mess up with them a bit, because the more dischord the Convention can have, the more it messes up the whole race not just on the top but down the ticket.
Did you see how many established major politicos are NOT COMING to Cleveland? Former Presidential nominee of the party, war hero John McCain is not coming. Wow. Imagine the opposite on the Democratic side where everybody who was once a dog catcher on a Democratic ballot once, wants to be at this convention which will be the most unified and happy Democratic love-fest of any year when it was not an incumbent running (and better than some when there was an incumbent, who was still facing a challenge).
The Trump initial strategy seems to be working on Hillary's negatives claiming its only women who support her and that 'Crooked Hillary' is unfit otherwise. A lame weak strategy but Hillary will need to work on those aspects and start that barrage of Trump-bashing and also her own image-fixing to cover those areas. Any sane comparison will immediately concede that Hillary is the most COMPETENT and most PREPARED candidate of the five remaining, arguably the most competent and prepared of any of the 22 who originally ran on either ticket. Luckily for Hillary she has for example Marco Rubio saying exactly that on tape, and she can add to it many many Trump comments positive about Hillary especially in her time as Secretary of State (and no doubt, also from her time as Trump's home-state New York Senator for 8 years; they are friends after all between Bill Clinton and Trump so you'd expect Trump to say nice things about his wife, it doesn't cost anything haha).
BUT NEW GAFFE again. So its yet another minority group that is mocked by Trump. Now its the Indian accent of calling centers. Yes we ALL hate calling centers, and yes they are easy jobs to ship overseas (which will NEVER come back under any Trumpian fantasy) but to mock again a part of the population by its ethnicity. This was supposed to end at Trump 1.0. NOW is a time for Manafort to show how sharp are his claws (and how astute are his instincts). Manafort should insist Trump goes fix that NOW. Go say he didn't mean to demean people of Indian and Pakistani and similar backgrounds, it was about shipping jobs overseas not about any ethnic groups - and if Manafort really is in power - make Trump apologize. It is good discipline for Trump to see whose the boss. Its FAR BETTER for the Republican party bosses to see Trump is a human being after all, and he might apologize again some day as he inevitably will keep shoving his big feet (and those hands with tiny fingers) into his mouth. I do not expect an apology but I do expect that this issue will be dealt with professionally, Trump will instantly stop saying that again, and the campaign will in some way walk it back.
So yes, watch out Lithuanians, you are next or Samoans. Or Buddhists. Or maybe its time to offend the Sikhs..
PS President Obama's ratings keep getting better. Out of 9 polls out in April only one has him under water now (its the always-pessimistic Economist/YouGov poll which almost systematically has given Obama his worst ratings). Gallup has Obama now up by 7. I told you this is a fourth-quarter President and he is not done yet. Did you see Saudi Arabia finally took Guantanamo prisoners after W Bush their close pal could not get them to do it but 'hated' Obama has finally been able to. Obama is not done governing and the opposition to his Supreme Court nominee is slowly crumbling. I do think its no more 50/50 on the SCOTUS, I'd say its now 60/40 that Obama gets to appoint the guy who flipped the balance of the Court. But if he doesn't, I also think its nearly certain Hillary would appoint a far younger and more liberal Justice (very very likely a woman) instead if she has to wait until February to do that in her first acts as the new President.
So thats a quick look at the political news and impacts to the race. And where have the Raspberry Women gone? I think they walked in through the out-door, out-door....
Still in a deeply Purple Mood
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | April 23, 2016 at 03:36 AM
If public speaking is better than sex, you’ve had lousy sex…
In business when thinking of getting into a new market we:
1 - Game out scenarios
2 - Do exploratory testing
3 - Combine the scenarios, and exploratory testing, to come up with a preliminary plan
Now I have to do some guessing
4 - He found that there was an inexpensive way to produce a test product, and introduced the test product into the market (2009)
5 - The test product was well received, and from what he learned, he expanded on the test product (2012)
6 - He evaluated the response, and made the decision to go ahead with a campaign (2014)
7 - Further test products were introduced into the market.
8 - In 2015 he announced his campaign, again in test mode to keep expenditures down.
9 - The campaign was well received
10 - As Tomi has pointed out most political operatives were already working, and there was probably a 4 to 6 month delay in hiring Manafort, I personally believe that Trump started looking for an operative around the first of October, and may have been talking to Manafort since early December
11 - During the delay in finding and hiring Manafort, the campaign made mistakes
12 - Also during the delay Trump did not hire staff, as Manafort probably told Trump that he would only come in if all staff decisions were his, and probably held off signing on long enough to make Trump desperate, so he could raise his price!
That’s my take on the situation. Trump didn’t want to spend a ton of money on a wild gamble. He waited until he was sure the product he could supply had a market.
This is not how a ‘normal’ campaign is run, but it is the way that businesses often operate. Move into a market inexpensively. Evaluate the demand, and the product. If the demand is there, look at the product, and modify it to suit the feedback and demand.
Let’s look at the original iPhone. It was a modification of a tablet device that Apple had been working on. Design was therefore inexpensive. The phone was designed using mostly off the shelf components.
Original production volume was an amount that Apple could produce relatively inexpensively, and that would not harm the company if the product did not sell. When it sold far better than expected Apple had problems ramping up production to meet the unexpected demand.
Effectively the same thing happened to the Trump campaign. Trump announced his candidacy, unsure how much demand there would be for the line he’d decided to take. While he had identified a demand, appearing on talk radio is not the same thing as actually entering the contest.
There was a demand, better than projected, much like with the iPhone. Trump decided to continue. But his campaign was missing some things, like the original iPhone was missing installable applications. So now we have Trump 2.0,, which is a lot like the iPhone 3GS (installable apps, GSM 3.0, usable on more networks…)\
He tried a variety of things, and much to his surprise ALL of them worked! Apple did the same thing, but was more organized...
So Manafort works on Trump, and we get Trump 3.0 which actually apologizes (Tomi is right, he needs to do this), is more organized, tows the party line on major issues, etc. much like Apple added the selfie cam on the iPhone 4, better processor for more speed, updated OS, and other updates.
Then we'll see Trump 4.0 at the convention, like the iPhone 5.
When he hits the campaign trail we'll see Trump 5.0, which will be like the iPhone 6 large screen model.
Is the comparison silly? Not in the least. Again, I'll remind you that way back in one of Tomi's first articles I said that Trump shouldn't be underestimated, and that I didn't think his Presidential run was done on a lark.
Like Tomi I can't prove my theory, the only proof I can offer is how well Trump has done as a candidate, even though he's messed up a number of times, and is finding that there's a steep learning curve to politics.
I suspect going into this Trump knew as much as Tomi and I do about American politics.
Oh, and I tweeted Tomi a link earlier about voter suppression. If it is as bad as this article claims, even Ted Cruz could win against Hillary.
http://www.gregpalast.com/new-york-voting-fiasco-just-the-warm-up-for-the-november-game/
Posted by: Wayne Borean | April 23, 2016 at 05:29 AM
@Tomi
"If Hillary wanted to throw some sand into the not-so-smoothly-running machine at Trumpolandia - she should make the point in any question about that - that she actually leads Trump in head-to-heads by 10 points and actually Cruz does much better."
Maybe she thinks Trump is her dream opponent and she does not want to interfere with his wrecking of the GOP.
Posted by: Winter | April 23, 2016 at 10:31 AM
@Winter,
I agree. Why would she want to face Ted Cruz, when her numbers are so much better against Donald Trump? At least at present. If Tomi and I are right, Donald Trump 3.0 and above will be much more competitive against Hillary, and unlike Tomi I think that his past gaffes will be less of an issue.
The man has always been known as a bit of a loose cannon. Saying a few non-PC things is normal for him. If the final Trump version manages to improve as much as we think he will, it is quite possible that enough people will ignore his 'Mexicans are rapists' line, and he could give Hillary a bit of a scare.
Because while a lot of folks already know Trump, many outside of hard core political nuts do not know Ted Cruz. Hi beliefs, and those of his supporters will be super toxic to a lot of Americans. LET'S EXECUTE ALL THE GAYS will turn off just about all the independents, the undecideds who Hillary's data mining operation will be targeting.
Posted by: Wayne Borean | April 23, 2016 at 03:32 PM
Stephen Colbert takes another shot at the Republican Presidential nomination contest, and ends up having Reince Priebus style breakfast cereal on camera. What is Reince Priebus style breakfast cereal you ask? Watch the clip, it is too funny for words.
http://youtu.be/aPS1H-GVU6A
Posted by: Wayne Borean | April 23, 2016 at 03:58 PM
It looks like Trump has no interest in Trump-2.0
WATERBURY, Conn. (AP) — A confident Donald Trump told supporters Saturday that he's "not toning it down," a day after his chief adviser assured Republican officials the GOP front-runner will show more restraint on the campaign trail.
"I'm not toning it down," Trump told a cheering crowd of 3,000 people, packed into a high school gymnasium in Waterbury, Connecticut. "Isn't it nice that I'm not one of these teleprompter guys?"
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-connecticut-toning-down
Posted by: Millard Filmore | April 24, 2016 at 12:14 AM
@ Millard Filmore
That's what he says, which almost guarantees that in fact he will indeed tone it down.
Posted by: cornelius | April 24, 2016 at 01:14 AM