Remember Shaquille O’Neal! The “man in the middle” they couldn’t do anything about, to use the words of Larry Bird after Lakers defeated Pacers in the NBA finals. He was so dominant in the middle that opposing teams had to get him out especially at the end of the game. So they threw 2nd, 3rd level players at him & fouled him. The idea was to provoke him and get him in foul trouble. If that didn’t work, they would foul him in the last few minutes of the game and make him shoot free throws, Shaquille’s major weakness.
That has been the strategy of Trump’s opponents against him. Remember the Heidi Cruz tweet by Donald Trump! Enraged by photos of his wife tweeted by some anti-Trump people, Donald Trump re-tweeted a tweet disparaging Heidi Trump. That united all his opponents in the Wisconsin primary and Trump lost. Then came the attacks against Trump University. Again Donald Trump lost his composure & blasted the sitting Judge and called TV anchors names. Both were cases of the Shaq strategy and they both worked.
The Hillary campaign knew about this big weakness of Trump and they threw the Khan family at him in their convention and post-convention. This was so easy to deflect & triangulate but, once again, Donald Trump took the bait and attacked the Khans, Gold Star parents of a true fallen American hero. That was so dumb that even Veterans Groups criticized Trump.
For those who remember the NY Giants – Buffalo Bills Super Bowl, the success of the Democrat convention was the second-quarter touchdown by Giants to go into half-time. The Giants got the ball to open the second half and they ran the ball against the Buffalo defense for seven minutes to score a touchdown and take the lead. That is what the Hillary campaign did against Donald Trump this past week. Coming off their convention, they ran over the Trump campaign thanks to Khan controversy & other Trump mistakes.
The Trump campaign seemed in a meltdown mode & the polls showed even some Trump supporters leaving in disgust. But remember what happened after that Giants drive in that Super Bowl? Buffalo outscored the Giants the rest of the game and the game came down to a last second field goal. That is how we see this campaign – an intense battle waging from now into election day to be won by the side that maximizes its opportunities and minimizes its unforced errors & self-goals.
Guess what happened in at least one poll on Friday?
- “Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s lead over Republican rival Donald Trump narrowed to less than 3 percentage points, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Friday, down from nearly eight points on Monday.
- About 42 percent of likely voters favored Clinton, to Trump’s 39 percent, according to the July 31-Aug. 4 online poll of 1,154 likely voters. The poll had a credibility interval of plus or minus 3 percentage points, meaning that the results suggest the race is roughly even“.
Whether other polls confirm this or not, this campaign is far from over. But it does depend on the Trump campaign getting its act together. And that means getting back to the Winning Trump.
1.Trump vs. the System
Donny Deutsch, the former ad-man, said on Tuesday on MSNBC’s Morning Joe:
- “Donald Trump has not had one positive, not non-negative, day in his campaign since he became the presumptive nominee”.
Deutsch was right. The “why” is critical. Since Trump became the presumptive nominee, he has been embroiled in the effort to make himself acceptable to the Republican party, to “unify” the party to make the convention successful. Trump got Paul Manafort, the veteran GOP inside man, to lead that effort. That worked and Trump had a good convention.
But Trump stopped being Trump in that process. His campaign became the traditional Republican campaign , another Romney-Ryan campaign. The desire to appease Speaker Paul Ryan, to woo him to back Trump became the goal of the Trump-Manafort campaign. That was potentially disastrous.
How disastrous? Those familiar with bond markets should remember what happened to Pimco. Bill Gross built the world’s largest bond fund and became known as the Bond King. Bill Gross, or “Billy Bob” Gross as we privately called him, was a seat-of-the-pants trader & analyst of the US economy and monetary policy. Then Pimco brought in Harvardian-erudite Mohamed El-Erian as the eventual successor to Bill Gross and made him Co-CEO. El-Erian was as different from Bill Gross as he could be with a brilliant reputation as an intellectual & governmental economist. What happened? Pimco, the world’s largest bond manager simply blew up.
In trying to work with El-Erian, Bill Gross stopped being Bill Gross. In trying to assimilate the Harvardian erudition of El-Erian, Gross lost his uniquely instinctive seat-of-the-pants genius. The conflict within him led to open conflicts with El-Erian. So El-Erian left. Then the adherents of El-Erian made Bill Gross leave in misery and Pimco is now a mere shell of what it used to be.
Trying to mix Donald Trump and Paul Ryan was a dangerous gamble and could have turned into a suicidal mistake. They are not only different but toxically incompatible. Trump’s Republican Party is the party of the Republican Voter and Ryan’s Republican Party is the party of the Republican big donor, corporate, country-club, think-tank elite. Trump became Trump by leading an insurrection against everything Paul Ryan represents. The mere fact that Trump had to appease Ryan shows how the American political system is rigged against the people of America.
No wonder the Trump campaign has not had a positive day since this appeasement began. That, we think & hope, ended this week when Donald Trump said he was “not quite there” about endorsing Paul Ryan in next week’s primary. When Trump said he was not ready to endorse Paul Ryan, John McCain, Kelly Ayotte, he caused a massive panic attack in the Republican establishment. The specter of the Republican nominee running against Republican senators & representatives was a nightmare and a potential cause of loss of the Senate & the House. They knew an enraged Trump was capable of doing that. After all, he had nothing to lose. He could always go back to being a billionaire. But they would lose everything beginning with their party. Was it the classic threat to “walk away” strategy of Donald Trump?
It worked. They all came together this week and you saw Trump being the happy Trump in Green Bay, Wisconsin on Friday evening. Look what he said in his rally in Green Bay:
- “This campaign is not about me; it is about America. It is time for a change”
- “This is a movement … I am only a messenger … we have done something together … I am not a politician .. I ran against the system … I am probably better off running against the system”
This is Donald Trump running a ” … I am your voice … ” FDR campaign under a Reagan big tent. The reporters covering it said “this is a different guy tonight” and “where was he a month ago?”. This was Donald Trump running free but disciplined, the way he ran after the Wisconsin primary debacle.
That doesn’t mean he is running against or without the traditional Republican party. The traditional Republican Party is in there with Mike Pence with his old friend Paul Ryan and Paul Manafort. With them, the Trump campaign can run a two-front battle against Hillary; the ground game of the Republican Party machine and the aerial attack & special operations of Donald Trump.
2. Obama Coalition
President Obama saw his approval rating soar to 54% matching the approval rating of President Reagan in 1998. And CNN reported that 94% Obama supporters plan to support Hillary Clinton. As we discussed last week in our Obama vs. Anti-Obama article, the Obama coalition is based on nearly total support of African Americans, a big edge in support of Hispanics/Latins and a base of support in Whites that have done well.
The Trump campaign can make a dent in this coalition by attacking Hillary Clinton and making her hard to vote for. But that is not enough. Donald Trump has to bring in his own voters, the silent majority that is no longer silent as he says. They are the movement for change in America, the movement that has made Donald Trump their champion.
But who are these voters? More importantly how many of them are there? Or as Charlie Rose asked Robert Costa of the Washington Post – “How wide is the movement that Trump has accepted as his reason for being?” Costa’s answer – “Its wide than any party“
3. Who is the Most Important Voter in 2016?
Robert Costa answered that as well in his conversation with Charlie Rose:
- “the most important voter in this movement, when I travel around the country, is the previously disengaged voter; they are almost non-partisan voters; they have given up political processes; they have disengaged from civic society; they don’t really follow politics & Trump and this movement of populism that has been out there, has lit a fire to may be have them come back to the process, to civic life at least for this fleeting time in 2016; & if that is a real coherent voting bloc, then Trump, regardless of the polls will have a shot in November regardless of all his mistakes; that is a huge block; there is so much of this country that rarely, if ever, votes; and if for some reason they come to the polls in droves that changes everything“
Why are these people not on the radar screens of either party or of pollsters?
- “… these are people who have not voted for a long time… people who may have sat out even the 2008, 2012 elections; people in suburban areas, in rural areas”
Why are they so disengaged?
- ” … the failure of institutions to make people happy about how they are living in America; to feel better about their lives; their children’s lives; it really cuts across both party lines and I am seeing everywhere I go; people are just frustrated with the country at large and not just with a specific party; Trump may be a beneficiary of that but he is not entirely making an overture to them in a straightforward way every day; He is a symbol of someone who is an outsider, an interloper, someone who is against the establishment, the elite class however people want to describe him … ”
These are the backbone of the 70% who say the country is on the wrong track and, if Bob Costa is correct, they are a bigger bloc than the Obama coalition. These are the same type of people who came out in droves to vote for Brexit. They can come out for Donald Trump if he devotes the next 3 months to them; to tell them he will fight for them; that he will be their voice and that they need not be silent any more.
You know who gets this? The Hillary Campaign. That is why their primary tactic is to bait Trump with attacks designed to enrage him; to provoke him into losing his composure or going nuts. That is exactly what the American voter doesn’t want to see – a President that might be prone to flying off the handle. That is Trump’s Achilles heel the HRC thinks and they will direct all their attacks to that heel.
4. Armor for Trump’s Achilles Heel
How do you prevent Donald Trump from counter-attacking insignificant attackers? Not by ignoring these attacks. That would just get him tormented inside and that torment may lead to exactly the sort of a terrible outburst that the Hillary campaign wants. So what’s the answer?
A new version of the original Clinton Kid, George Stephanopoulos. He & his small team were extremely fast off the snap and responded immediately & effectively to every “bimbo-eruption” to use the words of Hillary Clinton. In fact, their response was so fast & so deadly that they protected Bill Clinton and let him focus on his “its the economy, stupid” message.
The immediate need of the Trump campaign is to get a couple of first responders who can counter-attack instantly & intensely before Trump has a chance to respond himself. If Donald Trump sees the nasty counterpunch from his team, then he would not need to respond himself. He can even dismiss it with humor and keep his focus on “I am your messenger, your voice” message to his movement.
And who better to set up such a first responder media team? The name that comes to mind is Roger Ailes. He is the man who made Fox what it is today; he has an eye for media talent; he has the ability to hone a message. He is probably angry right now like a wounded grizzly. And reportedly Roger Ailes & Donald Trump had built a working relationship. Would he help the Trump campaign in setting up a new Stephanopoulos type team? Would he at least suggest the right talent that can do the job for the Trump campaign? We have no clue but we do know the Trump campaign better find and find fast someone first-tier to do that.
Coach Chuck Daly of the Detroit Pistons had a simple dictum- “keep running a winning play until they figure out how to stop it”. That is what the Hillary & Cruz campaigns have done – Khans, the Trump University Judge and Heidi Cruz. You don’t stop such plays by forcing your quarterback or MVP to change his game. You do it by finding your own talent and letting them take out the attackers.
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