C'mon, no one ever really thought these GOP bozos would take The Donald seriously. But now that they are, the Trump campaign's going through some growing pains as it adjusts to its unqualified success (pun intended),
reports Ben Schreckinger.
The turmoil began in earnest earlier this month with the departure of Trump’s longtime political adviser Roger Stone under disputed circumstances. Following Stone’s departure, campaign manager Corey Lewandowski announced he would travel around the country to interview operatives for a hiring spree that would expand Trump’s organization across the country. More than two weeks later, the campaign has not announced major new hires.
Oops. Okay, a little glitch at the national level. Then there's New Hampshire.
“It doesn’t seem like they’re putting together a ground game right now, and I don’t know what they’re getting from their events down here,” said an adviser to a rival New Hampshire campaign, who cited Bush, Rand Paul and Carly Fiorina as candidates with robust presences. Of Trump’s operation, he said, “It’s more of a curiosity than an organization.”
That pretty much sums up Trump's entire candidacy, no? But specific to NH, Trump has almost no real infrastructure by most accounts. If anything, that just makes his
smackdown of Jeb! in the "Live Free or Die" state last week even more impressive.
For more on the Trump phenomenon, head below the fold.
Earlier this month, Trump issued a detailed immigration proposal that won over some skeptics. “I’m pleasantly surprised that his policy paper is as sophisticated as it is,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates cracking down on illegal immigration.
Of a series of policy papers the campaign pledged to issue over a matter of weeks, only the immigration proposal has been forthcoming so far.
Please,
for the love of humankind, no more Trump policy papers. Please. Especially not if they're going to be as "sophisticated" as that immigration nonsense.
And Trump, who recently conceded that he relies on television programs to guide his views on military matters, may find it difficult to line up a real-life cast of experts to advise his campaign.
“I think not a lot of people want to say that they’ve talked to Trump,” said one conservative policy wonk who is sympathetic to some of Trump’s views. “Not a lot of people are willing to admit that they’ve had conversations with Trump, for fear that they’ll be ridiculed and locked out of conversations with other campaigns and the eventual nominee.
You mean,
like this guy—a military expert who went running scared after Trump named him as one of his "go-to" advisers.
Trump's a cult of personality candidate without the necessary infrastructure. Whether he can scale up his organization in any sort of meaningful way remains to be seen. Eventually, a real campaign has to have other people who can make rapid-fire decisions, feed the beast, and course correct without the blessing of the candidate. That will be rough going with an unqualified narcissist (pun intended) running the show.