Another good editorial in the Record. Keep up the good work.
Editorial: In axing Lweandowski, Trump missed shooting the messenger
Posted: June 22, 2016 - 12:00am | Updated: June 22, 2016 - 9:33am
ST. AUGUSTINE RECORD
On Monday Donald Trump fired his campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. The Associated Press reported that the move was meant to appease the GOP power structure and calm near-hysterical panic and wide chasms within Republican ranks. Republican Congressmen can’t decide whether to (metaphorically speaking) hold their noses or their candidate’s hand in public.
But we have to wonder how anyone other than the candidate could be blamed for the clear missteps and unexpected victories Trump has strung together since inserting himself into the presidential campaign.
Does anyone believe that Lewandowski actually “told” his candidate what to do or say, or that Trump would actually “listen” to him?
No, Trump got himself into the situation he’s in now — which is the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party for the presidency of the United States of America. No matter what you think of the man, you’ve got to give credit where credit is due.
So, credit Trump’s mouth and his laser-like aim at what voters most detest about American politics today. We elect mannequins dressed in either left- or right-wing garb. They talk in unison, scripted along party lines written by those in leadership positions. It’s lock-step pap, dressed up like conservative tough-guy individualism.
The establishment has let its own blood, is drowning in its misdeeds and watching Trump neuter them one by one along the way.
The more likely scenario for the shake-up inside Trump Plaza is the creeping realization that running a national campaign is nothing whatever like primary fisticuffs. It takes organization and money — lots of it. And Trump has almost nothing of either heading into the home stretch.
News sources are reporting this week that Trump’s war chest has just $1.3 million in available funds. Trump’s loaning it money and now owes himself $46 million. Hillary Clinton has over $42 million on hand.
She will outspend him. And, while Romney spent about the same as Obama in 2012, he was dogged by his negatives and spent much of his time and capital explaining them away, or trying to. And Romney’s negatives are a small percentage of those Trump is carrying toward the general election.
Trump’s staff of 73, make that 72, may have handled state primaries, but Clinton’s 800 staffers are hard at work doing what Obama did during his two campaigns. In mid-summer of 2014, Obama’s staff was over 900 strong. That’s paid staff. He had legions of volunteers. Romney had 403 on his payroll.
The Republicans are in deep water, and they’re not treading it together. They’re loath to endorse their candidate or help raise money for him.
It will be an interesting five months ahead.
But the notion that Trump’s campaign manager got his candidate off-point somehow is ridiculous. Trump didn’t know what he was going to say half the time he approached the podium and began answering questions off the top of his hair.
He shoots strictly from the hip, and that’s too-often mistaken with from the heart. No one close to his campaign has thus far accused Trump of owning one.
Trump, as Trump will tell you, has carried his unlikely campaign on his shoulders alone thus far. The only guy lonelier that the proverbial Maytag repairman might be a Trump speech writer.
No, if Trump’s message if souring — and that’s not to say that it is — shoot the messenger.
He has blossomed by the mouth. He may wither the same way.
No comments:
Post a Comment