Trump will have a real campaign this time
by digby
The New York Times reports on Trump's wildly expensive presidential campaign. It's a more professional campaign but they still have the same freak at the helm so I don't know wht difference that will really make:
For now, the Trump campaign is focused on giving its candidate the infrastructure for success and, as the race is in its early stages, giving him the room he craves to dictate his own script.
Mr. Trump is focused on vengeance after the end of the investigation led by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, and his campaign aides are indulging him, attacking the Democrats who have sought to investigate him and the reporters who have written about it. Mr. Trump, whom critics have repeatedly described as “corrupt,” has tried to affix both terms to the news media.
Privately, some Trump advisers acknowledge those attacks may have a shelf life, and that they are deploying them in part to blunt questions about Mr. Trump’s own credibility.
But aides say that Mr. Trump always needs a foil, and without the Mueller investigation to swing at and no clear Democratic challenger likely to emerge for months, the press is his stand-in.
In addition to the challenges posed by Mr. Trump’s preference for fights and distractions, the campaign faces headwinds that he did not as a first-time candidate. Democrats and Republicans see an electoral map that will be far more challenging for Mr. Trump, whose support in three key states has sagged, and who faced an invigorated and organic level of Democratic turnout.
To staff the campaign, advisers have brought in a mix of new hires and veterans of the 2016 effort. Brad Parscale, Mr. Trump’s campaign manager who speaks frequently with the president, has consulted extensively with veterans of past presidential runs, relying increasingly on Karl Rove, the architect of Mr. Bush’s re-election effort.
Karl Rove had a political theory that said "Politics is TV with the sound turned off." By that he meant it was all about visuals not about what candidates say. Does that work with Trump? The big rallies and a sea of red hats is pretty familiar. He's not exactly an attractive leader (meaning that he pulls faces and seems strange up close.) It's what he says that excites his base.
Maybe Rove has ideas about how to appeal to the Bush voters, but I'd guess he's probably a bit out of touch. The Bush coalition included a whole lot of white suburban women and many of them loathe trump with every fiber of their being.
On the other hand, Rove is very experienced at selling a relly dumb guy to the public. But Trump issomehting else again ...
I wonder how the Bush's feel about him helping Trump? (Of course, they'll probably be stumping for him in September 2020...)
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