Trump in deep sh*t if he doesn't get in on the first ballot, according to this article. Campaign is just a mess.
Donald Trump’s terrible night in Colorado exemplifies his campaign’s Achilles’ heel
By Philip Bump April 8 at 10:14 AM
washingtonpost.com
The assumption for months was that everything would fall into place. That there was no need to really dig in, that the outcome was obvious. And then, too late, it became clear that this optimism was unfounded. Or maybe not too late, but late enough in the process to mean that folks would have to scramble. And now everything is up in the air.
The paragraph above describes the Republican establishment’s attitude about Donald Trump’s candidacy, obviously. But it also describes Trump’s push for the nomination itself.
From the moment he stepped onto that escalator on Trump Tower until about a month ago, Trump’s assumption was that he could power his way to the nomination through sheer force of will. That the scene when he strolled through the Iowa State Fair, pulling people into a tight cluster around him as he moved through the crowd, would work at an electoral level as well. And, despite the skepticism of the establishment (and myself), it nearly did. With remarkably little effort beyond bopping around the country in his private jet, Trump vaulted into the lead and stayed there.
But that strategy has hit its limit, thanks mostly to Ted Cruz’s dogged campaign efforts and the enormous luck of the Republican Party in having such a huge field. Ben Carson and Marco Rubio and Jeb! Bush (remember Jeb!?) didn’t peel away too many delegates, but between them and Cruz and John Kasich, they’ve set aside a lot of delegates that might otherwise go to Trump. In 2012, the non-Mitt-Romney candidates ended with 530 delegates combined. Cruz, Rubio and Kasich have more than 800.
So now, just as the establishment had to scramble to try to cobble together an effort to put spike strips in Trump’s path — an effort that may barely have been in time — Trump has to scramble to figure out how to put together the 1,237 delegates he needs to clinch.
The problem, as we’ve noted before, is that his team has shown no ability to do so. Trump hired Paul Manafort to organize the effort, apparently usurping Corey Lewandowski’s authority. But what’s happening in Colorado this week shows why that is a trickier job than it might seem.
</snip> Rest here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/04/08/donald-trumps-terrible-night-in-colorado-exemplifies-his-campaigns-achilles-heel/ |
