Wednesday, May 18, 2016

Trump Campaign Civil War Crippling Its Woefully Belated Fundraising Efforts

by JASmius



Hey, Trumpies, I have a question for 'yall: Who the hell is in charge of your candidate's campaign?  Is it Corey "The Enforcer" Lewandowski?  Is it Paul "The Winter Soldier" Manafort?  Is it Roger "The Godfather" Stone?  Who's calling the shots in TrumpWorld?  Do you even know?  Does Trump know?

Because if he needs a billion dollars for this general campaign, and all he's got is Sheldon Adelson's hundred mil due to the Trump civil war spooking away GOP donors whom Trump spent the entirety of the primary campaign alienating already, he might be running on fumes by the summer solstice:

Top Trump adviser Paul Manafort has privately expressed support for a yet-to-be-launched super PAC that would be affiliated with a close friend of the [m]illionaire. Multiple sources familiar with the matter said Manafort’s allies hope the PAC will become the favored vehicle for huge checks from mega-donors like Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, who is believed to be considering spending as much as $100 million boosting Trump.

But the sources said that Manafort’s chief internal rival, Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who is close to Adelson’s advisers, is not on board with the plan for the new PAC. And they suggest that if Lewandowski doesn’t like the set-up, he may signal his support for a totally different outside spending vehicle — possibly one that hasn’t even been created yet. …[emphasis added]

Understand something, Trumpalumpers: Just as when Ted Cruz was kicking Trump's ample backside in ground game and organization and delegate recruitment (the "shadow primary") because neither he nor anybody in his campaign had sufficient competence to know what they were doing, so the "Trump train" is hopelessly behind on even constructing a fundraising apparatus (maybe that's the excuse for The Donald hiring a George Soros lackey to run it).  They need every leg up they can get, wouldn't you agree?  And now here's the babe-yanker trying to set back the process even more by putting his petty intra-campaign turf squabbling before the campaign's acute need for infrastructure and cash that Hairboy is too cheap to spend when it's actually his.

For all the flaws and drawbacks and problems that La Clinton Nostra has (i.e. their candidate), resources and organization are not among them:

Trump allies fear that continued confusion could cripple their slow-starting big-money fundraising effort, which has been plagued by infighting. It’s an especially acute problem for Trump, since he eschewed fundraising and openly antagonized the GOP donor class during his mostly self-funded primary campaign, allowing [Mrs.] Clinton and her allies to build a massive cash advantage using a quartet of super PACs working closely together to fill well-defined roles.

The four main super PACs devoted to [Mrs.] Clinton have combined to raise $89 million from the beginning of last year through the end of March, the period covered by the most recent FEC filings. And the leading pro-Clinton super PAC, Priorities USA Action, has already reserved $90 million in television ad time in key swing States for tough general election ads against Trump. [emphases added]

You remember my axiom about campaign warchests, don't you?  It's adapted from Peter Pevensie's line to his centaur XO before the final battle against Hillary Jadis the White Witch in Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe.  In reply to his remark that "numbers do not win a battle," the "little king" says, "No; but I bet they help".  The same principle definitely applies to campaign finance.  Hillary Clinton is arguably the tactically worst major party presidential candidate of the modern era in that she is unlikable, abrasive, hectoring, off-putting, corrupt, and of course, honest as the Planck length.  Which is a wonderful match for Trump, since he is detestable, abrasive, a bully, Joe Isuzu-slimy, and dishonest as the cosmological horizon.

They both suck and they'd both be terrible presidents.  The difference between them in the context of the 2016 campaign is that Mrs. Clinton is well-funded and professionally organized, and Donald Trump is not.  And, once again, as the previous two presidential elections have garishly proven, organization and ground game and "granular," grassroots-up GOTV efforts are the path to November victory, not top-down, one-size-fits-all national media blitzes, a primary advantage that Trump will not enjoy in the general campaign because unlike in the GOP primaries, the media will be on Mrs. Clinton's side.  And Fox Trump News isn't gonna be anywhere near enough of an offset or defense against the nuclear carpet-bombing to come.

And when it does come, what will Trump's inbred...um, in-fought campaign shoot at it?  Spitballs?  Clinton penis jokes?  The very detestable abrasiveness that has earned The Donald his historic negatives?

Nothing about the Trump candidacy has ever been well thought out, and it's far more an indictment of the Republican nominating electorate than any Trump virtue that he conquered the party.  But if they don't all get on the same page on running this uphill general campaign, they will lose it, and badly.  And isn't that the job of the campaign's titular head?  One would think that such a stellar "manager" would have run a much tighter ship from day one, wouldntcha?


UPDATE: His campaign fundraising may be awful, but Trump, Inc. sure seems to have benefited handsomely from that two billion dollars of free publicity:

Donald Trump's entry into the Republican race for president was a business bonanza for the real estate mogul, with a new federal financial filing providing a snapshot of the billionaire's sprawling operations — from real estate to golf courses, and licensing deals to management businesses.

Trump's disclosure form filed last July showed his holdings brought in revenue of $362 million in 2014 and the first half of 2015, the campaign said in a statement, the Washington Post reports.

The form released Wednesday — which the campaign said shows revenue spiking to $557 million — covers a shorter period of time, from July 2015 until Monday.

You DO all realize that this was probably his original motivation for through his toupee into the ring, alongside his stupendous ego, right?  So tell me again why he's not self-funding his campaign?  Besides greed, that is.

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