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April 21, 2016

Comments

steve epstein

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/

Tomi T Ahonen

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 :-)

Tomi T Ahonen

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 :-)

Michael Z. Williamson

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.

Tomi T Ahonen

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 :-)

grogxd

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

cornelius

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

cornelius

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.

Tomi T Ahonen

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 :-)

cornelius

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.

cornelius

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.

cornelius

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.

grogxd

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/

Tomi T Ahonen

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 :-)

Wayne Borean

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/

Winter

@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.

Wayne Borean


@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.

Wayne Borean


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

Millard Filmore

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

cornelius

@ Millard Filmore
That's what he says, which almost guarantees that in fact he will indeed tone it down.

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