Trump Campaign Adds Georgia Staff
Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is not only adding key staffers at the national level, it is beefing up its presence in Georgia. Brandon Phillips, Trump’s Georgia State Director, announced that Jennifer Hazelton will serve as Communications Director in Georgia, while Billy Kirkland will serve as the Senior Adviser for the Georgia Trump Pence campaign. Phillips issued the following statement:
We have assembled an all-star team dedicated to keeping Georgia in the Republican win column. We are committed to taking Mr. Trump’s message to all Georgians, and turning the enthusiasm of this grassroots movement into votes to win in November. Georgia voters understand that Hillary Clinton represents a third Obama term while the Trump-Pence campaign of tougher law enforcement, stopping illegal immigration and bringing back jobs is resonating strongly across the state. Voters are tired of the same old Washington corruption and back room deals and will vote for change in November.
Prior to joining the Trump campaign, Hazelton worked as Communications Director for Rep. Tom Graves, and has held journalist and producer positions at CNN and Fox News. Kirkland has over 15 years of campaign experience, most recently overseeing Senator David Perdue’s winning bid in 2014. Prior to that, Kirkland was the National Field Director for the Faith and Freedom Coalition.
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Jon Richards
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It appears US voters will be choosing a third Obama term, since everything about the Trump campaign is misdirected to other than old white men. We need better not tougher law enforcement, and to deal with current illegal immigrants instead of obsessing about amnesty. Those jobs are a pipe dream. They aren’t coming back.
It’s a hoot that Roger Ailes, driven out of Fox News for sexual harassment, is going to advise a campaign that tanking with women across the board.
Good moves which go along with the news that Trump shuffled his national campaign team – http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/donald-trump-campaign-manager-kellyanne-conway-227097 – Kelly Anne Conway and Stephen Bannon now in charge of critical aspects of the campaign.
These moves signal a more serious effort now that summer is winding down and people really start to pay attention. Probably the scariest news Clinton’s team has heard in a while since they have not been able to put away Trump despite spending hundreds of millions. Now he has a serious team, ad buys going up and seems to be on message based on the last 2 nights.
I know Billy and Brandon and they will do a great job for Trump here in Georgia. But that’s the problem. They are here in Georgia and not in Florida or Ohio. Trump shouldn’t have to spend a dime in Georgia.
As far as the staff change at the top, you can’t say that it’s a good sign when you have had two changes at the top of your campaign leadership within two months.
It is a good sign that Trump is adding campaign professionals in key leadership positions. The race is wide open so no downside in adjusting leadership to take advantage of the situation.
The real story should be about the Clinton and #NeverTrump failed efforts to disqualify Trump. Hundreds of millions have been spent. Media attacks daily. No-name indy candidates jumping in and yet despite all that, Trump still is competitive. Mike Murphy and his fellow failed consultants must be wondering WTF it will take to knock this outsider off.
Trump is doing a good job disqualifying himself all on his own.
You just keep thinking whatever makes you sleep better at night, but these are not the moves that a winning campaign makes.
If he hadn’t made the moves, you would be criticizing him for failing to adjust his crew.
Please look back at every post I have ever made about Trump. No where will you find a post negative about his staff. The staff isn’t the problem. Trump is the problem. I have and will continue to criticize the candidate. No staffer can fix the problem the Trump campaign has becasue Trump is the equivalent of a political cancer.
Can’t put Trump away? You live in a sad fantasy world.
http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/
It’s kind of sad. At least Konop saw that he was wrong about Trump and decided to just leave the comments section instead of continuing to be wrong all the time.
You want to know why Paul Manafort wasn’t a great campaign manager? He was available for the position in March of a presidential year.
And these latest additions? Yup, they were available even later than that.
Pretty much sums it up.
When Bart says the race is “wide open”, I’m not sure if he means nationally or in Georgia…if it is the latter, that can’t be a good sign for the campaign, given that Georgia has not voted Democratic for president since 1992 (and that was thanks to Ross Perot; otherwise there would have been no way Clinton would have carried this state). If it is the “former”, well that could be true in the sense it basically boils down to 4 states for Trump—Florida, Ohio, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. He is not going to win Virginia (which would probably go for Clinton even without Tim Kaine on her ticket) and it is unlikely he will win Colorado. Even the Wall Street Journal editorialized the other day, if Arizona, Utah and Georgia are still in play next month, then it is time for Pence to step up to the plate….
Trump is the candidate, not Pence. Trump will be the candidate when you and millions of other voters go to the polls in November. The WSJ is no different than the rest of the DC insiders trying to keep the outsider from rocking their boat. Of course they will continue to editorialize against Trump, why stop now.
And ‘wide open’ refers to the national presidential race. Despite meaningless early polls, GA will go Trump by at least 7%. Having a small team here is no different from any other recent GOP campaign.
Care to make a wager?
I will EAT MY LAPTOP if Trump wins the election.
What do you wager?
That’s sad. You shouldn’t take advantage of a blind person like that.
I’ll put ketchup on your laptop, bon appetit!
Trump was always gonna have someone to head up his Georgia campaign and someone to run the comm side. The only shocker is he should have done it months ago, at least by convention time.
The new national hires are more interesting. Conway has been with Cruz and Ailes has been with 50 years of gopers. They’re both pros and Trump will benefit from having them around but I think a big reason for their hire is that Manafort is feeling the heat from his Ukraine operations. That’s a big embarrassment looming.
The downside of the hires is that neither one is particularly subtle. They aren’t bridge builders. Outside of a few read-from-the-prompter events, expect more of the same from Trump, except louder–Clinton’s had a stroke, the media is biased, the elections are rigged, Trump offers the only way out.
An interesting aspect of the Manafort story is that he hired lobbyists here to do his work for Russia/Ukraine (this looks like a possible way to lobby without disclosing where the money came from), and one of the firms he hired was John Podesta’s brother’s firm. John Podesta being Hillary’s campaign chairman!
Dance band on the Titanic
Sing “Nearer, my God, to Thee”
The iceberg’s on the starboard bow
Won’t you dance with me…
Clinton’s path to victory is pretty simple, in 3 steps: (1) win the 18 states (plus DC), with a combined 242 electoral votes, that have voted Democratic in every presidential election since 1992., anchored by the large states of California, with 55 electoral votes; New York with 29 electoral votes and Illinois with 20 electoral votes; (2) win the 3 states–Iowa, New Hampshire and New Mexico—that have voted Democratic in 5 of the last 6 presidential elections (15 combined electoral votes); and (3) win Virginia, which is a sure bet for her with Kaine on the ticket, and she is at the barebones 270 electoral votes for victory—even if she loses Colorado, Florida, Nevada and Ohio. Trump’s winning scenario relies on taking away states that backed Obama in 2012 while not allowing Hillary to win any states that backed Romney last time—an unlikely scenario at this stage. As for Trump winning Georgia by at least 7 points, that seems highly unlikely given the Libertarian potential here, along with some Clinton investment in the state. Obama largely conceded Georgia to Romney in 2012, probably a wise decision in that it allowed Obama to invest heavily in Florida, which he carried by less than 1 point; on the other hand, it would not have made any sense for Obama to invest much time here to reduce Romney’s margin from 8 to say 5 points. I bet today if the Trump campaign were offered a 2 or 3 point victory in Georgia from the Almighty, they would take it.
When you are digging yourself in a hole it probably isn’t in your best interest to dig even deeper.
Trump brings GOP establishment basher on board:
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/steve-bannon-gop-bacher-227122
The ‘addition’ of Ailes and this Bannon character is more of a prelude to what happens after the election than what it will do for him now. When Trump craters on election day it’s not like he’s going to go away. These two are going to help him launch his next endeavor…TrumpTV; Complete with Sean Hannity, I would bet. There’s going to be a ready audience in all the nut jobs that voted for him plus there will be a new platform for ‘conservatives’ to vent their frustrations about President Hillary Clinton. Need to plan for 4-8 years of ambivalence and obstruction, after all, and it’s a great grift for Trump to lay on these poor saps who think he’s actually serious.
Really this is just the beginning of the end for the GOP. After Trump makes it his own after the election there will really be no recovering from the damage he will do.