Trump's Campaign? What Campaign?
Indeed, the great irony of this campaign is the apparent anti-Clinton derangement syndrome that has driven Republicans to nominate Trump. Now the volatile, pouty-mouthed industrialist with insult-comic style and very little knowledge of government seems increasingly poised to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory.
Yet Trump seems to be having too much of a good time in the spotlight to see the sinking of his own campaign ship. Buoyed up by billions of dollars in free media coverage generated by his hyperactive Twitter fingers, he seems to have overlooked the traditional pivot from campaigning to the Grand Old Party's conservative base to appeal to moderate swing voters who will decide the November election.
Lewandowski recently defended his candidate's no-frills approach. "We are leaner, meaner, more efficient, more effective. Get bigger crowds. Get better coverage," Lewandowski said. "If this was the business world, people would be commending Mr. Trump for the way he's run this campaign."
Hah! Now Lewandowski is out and, if this were the business world, the Trump campaign would be teetering on bankruptcy.
Maybe Trump thinks he can rewrite the book on presidential campaigning by turning his celebrity into a campaign of stunts and free media.
Or maybe, as some suspect, he never intended to get this far with what started out as a brand-building stunt and happened to strike a long-neglected core of frustrated, displaced middle-class Americans.
Either way, he's stuck with running now and appears to be headed either to a long-shot victory or a crushing defeat.
RNC leaders are divided between those debating how much they should help Trump and those who feel the party should dump him at next month's national convention in Cleveland. That's unlikely to happen. The party with the most disunity tends to lose.
Like it or not, loyal Republicans have little choice left but to support Trump's campaign -- if they can find it.
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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com.)
(c) 2016 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
