“They’ve really been the mouthpiece of the Trump campaign in a way that Fox News was the mouthpiece of previous Republican campaigns”, Fairleigh Dickenson political science professor Dan Cassino said.
Advertisement
Trump’s appointment of his long-time supporter – Bannon is the executive chairman of the politically conservative Breitbart news site – as his campaign CEO is a sign that with 82 days of the presidential race to go, nothing is off limits.
One of the first Bannon-Conway tasks is to refocus the Trump campaign, in terms of directing resources to winnable states which, absurdly, Trump at times has believed includes Democrat-saturated California, New York and CT – where he held a campaign event in the weekend even though the Republicans have lost that state in the last six elections.
“I have known Steve and Kellyanne both for many years”.
Trump underscored that conviction Wednesday with a staff overhaul at his campaign’s highest levels, the second shake-up in the past two months. Bannon, who was once recognized by Bloomberg Politics as the “most risky political operative in America”, will oversee the campaign staff and operations in addition to strategic oversight of major campaign initiatives.
According to the Trump campaign, Stephen K Bannon will seek to “bolster the business-like approach of Mr Trump’s campaign”, which many have interpreted as a desire by the candidate to return to the pugilistic tactics that got him the nomination.
Trump has also promoted Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser and pollster to his campaign, to the position of Campaign Manager.
Her campaign’s manager accused Bannon of presiding over a website that “peddles divisive, at times racist, anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories”.
His plummeting poll numbers suggest that he is cruising toward defeat in November unless he is able to drastically change course. The Associated Press reported Wednesday that Manafort helped the party secretly route at least $2.2 million in payments to two prominent Washington lobbying firms in 2012, doing so in a way that effectively obscured the party’s efforts to influence US policy.
“Now that the polls have gone way down under the Manafort regime, he (Trump) assumes Manafort is not what he needs and he is looking for folks who will pat him on the head”. He lags behind Clinton in fundraising and organizing, with few operators in key battleground states to help organize volunteers and churn out the vote. Trump has already revealed his liking for Russian politics, even endorsing Putin’s occupation of the Crimean peninsula, something that the USA has firmly stood against since the events occurred back in early 2014. “It’s an indication that this campaign, as negative as it has been, is going to be even more so going forward”. “Friends don’t let friends vote for Trump”.
Anyone still holding out hope that Trump might actually begin that long-awaited centrist and/or “be less crazy” campaign reboot had those dreams dashed for good early Wednesday morning when he named Steve Bannon as the chief executive of his presidential campaign. “It’s essentially, ‘dance with the one who brung ya'”.
“Lewandowski himself weighed in on the shakeup, adding “[Trump] wants to have people around him who want to win at all costs”.
Donald Trump’s reshuffling of his staff this week portends a risky pivot: a bare-knuckled, outsider-focused effort where no tactic for taking down Hillary Clinton will be off limits.
Errol Louis is the host of “Inside City Hall”, a nightly political show on NY1, a NY all-news channel. A statement announcing the hires was released Wednesday. By making this choice he is choosing what kind of campaign he wants to run.
The veteran pollster acknowledged polling now shows Trump behind in the race, but said it’s to his advantage.
Similarly, conventional wisdom holds that candidates need to blanket the airwaves with ads to rebut their opponents’ attacks and launch some of their own, if for no other reason than to force rivals to spend money on defense.
Republican consultant Ryan Williams, who was Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign spokesman, told me, “Trump’s problem at this point is that he simply can’t put together the coalition needed to win the general election”.
Advertisement
This year he has repeatedly interviewed Trump.
