The Trump campaign has 30 paid staff members for a national campaign.

[sufrommich]

That's unheard of,that's not even one staff member per state.

It's hard not to fixate on Donald Trump's string of galactic unforced errors on the campaign trail. But there's a whole different story playing out on the campaign mechanics front - and one that has Republicans rightly worried. According to this new story out from AP, the Trump campaign estimates that it currently has a nationwide field staff of 30 people. 30. This in a country with 50 states.

Trump is largely outsourcing what's typically called a campaign's ground game, which includes the labor-intensive jobs of identifying and contacting potential supporters. Ed Brookover, recently tapped to serve as the Trump's liaison to the RNC, says the campaign is making progress on adding its own staff in key states.

It is difficult to overstate just how many crazy notions are embedded in this package. No presidential campaign can really outsource its field operation to the party. That just means that the party has to build a whole additional field staff in addition to the one its already building (set aside not being able to control its strategy, quality of work etc.) That's not possible, or at least not possible to do well. The way this works in the modern campaign is that the presidential campaign has its field operation, the party has an additional field operation and they are coordinated together and in some ways integrated together in the fall for maximal impact.

The party, necessarily has more focus on all the other races besides the presidential. The presidential campaign mainly focuses on itself. But they work together (in the bounds of certain restrictions on coordination). And at the end of the day, every solid Republican voter who gets brought to the polls helps everyone up and down the ticket. Down ticket races are heavily, heavily dependent on these two massive field operations; they get pulled along with the wave of turnout these and other campaign committees coordinate.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/under-the-hood


The GOP has a disaster on it's hands and no way to make it better without making it worse in the short run.

[leeroysphitz]

1. Apparently Trump doesn't need a ground game. All he has to do is say something racist or outrageous

and his supporters just identify themselves, vocally and loudly and 20,000 more doosh bags show up at his next rally...

[YoungDemCA]

5. The crazy thing is that what you are describing is exactly how he has gotten this far

[mucifer]

2. and more free press than anyone.

[winstars]

3. Does this 30 include the knuckleheads that appear on CNN like Jeffery Lord and those 2 robotic

women whose names escape me at the moment???

Don the Con could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue (sound familiar?) and these "people" would say something like:

"Well, I am sure Mr. Trump had a very good reason for shooting this person and Hillary Clinton sucks and emails and Libya and Monica and BENGAHZI!!!"

Its so useless to have any of them on TeeVee because whatever the subject is, you already know what their response will be before they ever speak.

I hope they are getting paid well to be such asses...

30 people nationwide.

[PJMcK]

4. Donald Trump is incompetent

To his supporters, the entire appeal of Donald Trump seems to be based on his business acumen and "straight talking" delivery. Plus, his crowd likes the racism, xenophobia and general rudeness: he's the Howard Stern of politics. But everything about the man is phony.

His vaunted business success is just another of Mr. Trump's scams. In fact, he's a terrible businessman. The obvious examples are his 4 bankruptcies, hundreds of lawsuits from unpaid contractors and the demise of his vanity products (steaks, vodka, etc.). How can you fail with a casino? That's a business where people just give you their money!

But this TPM Editor's Blog demonstrates why he sucks at business: he doesn't understand management. If he did, he'd have an organization for his campaign. 30 staffers nationwide? That's a joke. Hillary Clinton's success on the Democratic side was greatly aided by the large organization and contacts she built for years around the country.

In a way, the management skills needed to run a successful presidential campaign are a good barometer of a candidate's ability to run a large organization. Donald Trump micromanages everything and that won't work. All of which is good for our side.

[woolldog]

6. And yet he's only ~ 5 points behind nationally.

And even in PA and FL, and 3 points behind in VA. He's not a normal candidate so the typical rules on how to organize and run a campaign don't seem to apply to him. He's doing well doing it his way.

[joshcryer]

7. Trump has drank his own reality TV koolaid.