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Friday, June 17, 2016

Smells Like Party Unity

Remember the conspiracy theories that Trump was a Clinton plant? While that may not literally be true, Trump is acting exactly as ways he would if it were literally true.

He can't get that a primary and general election are different animals. Simply getting publicity in the general is not enough.

He feels like he doesn't need to unify the party as he won the primary without doing it. Meanwhile this is how Trump's co-chair is asking for party unity.

"Donald Trump’s campaign team is apparently fed up with Republicans publicly expressing reservations about their presumptive nominee."

"Either they want to get behind the presumptive nominee who will be the nominee of this party and make sure that we do everything we can to win in November or we're just asking them if they can't do that, then just shut the hell up," Trump campaign co-chair Sam Clovis said Thursday on CNN’s “New Day.” "That's what we're asking them to do."

"Trump earned fresh rebukes from Republicans on Capitol Hill for his recent attacks on the “Mexican” heritage of a federal judge and for his renewed fixation on banning Muslim immigrants from the United States. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) called Trump’s comments about the judge the “textbook definition” of racism, while Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) worried aloud that Trump could be the party’s next Barry Goldwater."

"The negative comments about Trump have sounded in statehouses, too. This week alone, Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) and Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) said they couldn’t stomach voting for the New York businessman."

According to Clovis, Republican leaders need to “figure out what they want.”

“It's either the leadership that's wrong or we're wrong. And it can't be both," Clovis said. "And I think right now we're the ones that are winning. They're not."

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/sam-clovis-support-trump-or-shut-up

We're the ones winning. Clovis hasn't seen any recent polls. Meanwhile, Reince Priebus says 'Wow this is great. We couldn't be getting along better.'

Whatever you say Reince:

Trump’s relationship with RNC sours

"Tensions flare as the party hires a fired Trump aide and uses vendors linked to #NeverTrump, while fundraising flags."

"Donald Trump is relying heavily on the Republican Party to bolster his skeletal operation, but his campaign’s relationship with the Republican National Committee is increasingly plagued by distrust, power struggles and strategic differences, according to sources in both camps."

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/donald-trump-republican-national-committee-224403#ixzz4BpsgPNqx

By the way, when you look into Trump's business history, this is how his business relationships usually go as well.

As usual, he's all about himself, full stop. This is why so many business partners have regretted joining with him. The RNC is not going to be any different.

While Preibus plays 'Hear no evil, see no evil' in public, in private he sings a different tune:

"In recent days, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus has privately grumbled that his advice doesn’t seem welcome with Trump, according to one RNC insider. Other party officials have expressed frustration that Trump’s campaign is trying to take too much control over a pair of fundraising committees with the party while adding little to the effort, according to campaign and party officials familiar with the relationship."

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/donald-trump-republican-national-committee-224403#ixzz4BptF6YMs

Remember when Bernie's campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, went out of his way to praise Reince as what a party chairman should look like?

"While Trump had promised Priebus that he would call two dozen top GOP donors, when RNC chief of staff Katie Walsh recently presented Trump with a list of more than 20 donors, he called only three before stopping, according to two sources familiar with the situation. It’s unclear whether he resumed the donor calls later.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/donald-trump-republican-national-committee-224403#ixzz4Bptg7L96

I love that: 'unclear whether he resumed the calls later.'

In other words 'he did not resume the calls later.'

The Trump team is right about this though:

"Meanwhile, there’s deep skepticism on Trump’s campaign about the RNC’s commitment to the presumptive GOP nominee, with some campaign officials questioning how hard the RNC is working to help Trump and to raise money for his campaign’s joint committees with the party."

"Indeed, faced with suggestions that party leaders are unhappy with Trump’s incendiary rhetoric about the Orlando shooting and the judge presiding over a lawsuit against the candidate and his Trump University, campaign insiders scoffed."

“I don’t think we are going to take a lot of political advice from Priebus,” a campaign official said. “From my perspective, we should not be relying on the RNC for much because I’m not sure they are fully supportive yet,” the campaign official said, adding, “but we hope and expect to soon be on the exact same page.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/donald-trump-republican-national-committee-224403#ixzz4Bpu0nCUf

They're not really. Though it's kind of a virtuous circle. The RNC is not fully supportive yet. So the Trump team dismisses them and the RNC becomes even less supportive.

Here's the thing though. In a general election you really do need a party behind you.

The beautiful thing is Trump refuses to believe this. He thinks he can just do what he did in the primary. He's going to red states and holding big rallies.

He's planting his flag in ridiculous places like California and New York.

As Tom Brown and I have talked about-Scott Sumner said the same thing-the real worry is that Hillary beats him up to badly before he even gets to the convention and they have to stop the fight.

Jennifer Rubin was raising this possibility yesterday again.

I think it's too late for that, and, anyway, any GOPer hoping to run in the future, would rather wait. Trying to drive this plane now is a suicide mission.

Think of it this way. Hillary and Trump are supposed to fly their planes from NY to California. But Trump has driven it out to sub sahara Africa.

If you're Paul Ryan, you don't want to try to beat her to California from Mozambique. At most you want to limit Congressional losses and try again in 2020.

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