Merry Christmas!
Posted on 12/19/2015 9:52:13 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
DES MOINES — Donald J. Trump has dominated much of this political season, excited an often-ignored part of the electorate, filled huge arenas with followers and upended the rules of how modern campaigns are run.
But now he faces an urgent question: Can he actually win crucial early contest states?
Translating a personality-driven campaign to the voting booth is no easy feat, especially for a candidate who has never run before.
But here in the state with the first nominating contest, about six weeks away, Mr. Trump has fallen behind in the nuts and bolts of organizing. A loss in Iowa for Mr. Trump, where he has devoted the most resources of his campaign, could imperil his leads in the next two nominating states, New Hampshire and South Carolina, where his get-out-the-vote organizations are even less robust.
A successful ground game is crucial in Iowa because of the state’s complicated method of caucus voting, but the Trump campaign has lagged in reaching some of its own benchmarks....
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
On stage, Tana Goertz, Trump’s Iowa Co-Chair, sounded more like she was leading a pep rally than opening for a stump speech. Goertz asked the crowd of 2,500 to turn to their neighbors and tell them “one thing you like about Donald Trump.” The crowd did as they were asked and Goertz exclaimed, “Congratulations! You just caucused for Donald Trump.”
It was the same speech NBC News saw Goertz give in Waterloo, Iowa, a few weeks ago and yet another sign, the campaign is taking their ground game seriously in this caucus state.
The campaign now says they have caucus leaders for all 99 counties, but that they are really focusing on Iowa’s 1,700 precincts.
The effort is being led by Republican strategist Chuck “The Truck” Laudner, who famously drove former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum across Iowa during the 2012 cycle. Santorum’s win here in 2012 was attributed to the fact that he got to all 99 counties.
Don’t expect Trump to do that. He comes in for big events and leaves immediately thereafter. Then again, with the exposure he gets, he may not need to.
THANK YOU, Trisham!!!
Nice report on the the Iowa Co-Chair! Way to go TANA!
Great line, “... You just caucused!”
Thank, Jane! Great news.
My pleasure, Rita. :)
How troll factory from Russia works, insider’s story.
http://crazenews.com/russias-troll-factory-55-savushkina.html
I wouldn’t post anything, but you seem to be a thoughtful fellow and I have an honest question here. Deace goes on about ‘comparing Trump 2016’ to Robertson, but in actuality, Laudner merely mentioned that as an example of someone accomplishing something that hadn’t been previously accomplished. That makes the majority of what Deace wrote irrelevant and worthless as analysis of what’s actually going on.
I notice this kind of tunnel visioned pedantry repeatedly with people who are trying to predict what is going to happen with Trump and it often results in people being 180 degrees off in their prediction.
Why, in your opinion, do people insist on doing things like this? Is it a lack of information that causes them to extrapolate blindly on whatever small amount of information they have available to them? Or do they just lose all sense of logic and reason when it comes to their conventional wisdom being challenged?
Maybe Trump and Laudner are completely unprepared, off-base, and just plan clueless about what to do in Iowa. I sure as hell wouldn’t bet on that, but maybe it’s true. I don’t know. But what I do know is that ham-fisted ‘analysis’ like what Deace wrote is an absolute joke and indicative to me of someone engaging in wishful thinking.
Ground game baby, ground game, you need it to win.
Deace is a real hard guy to like. He may, like a lot of pundits, be limited to his own circle of friends.
The bottom line is that this headline is a straightforward falsehood. If Trump ‘loses’ in Iowa, it will be because he’s an annoying New Yorker, or because he didn’t spend enough time face to face. It won’t be because he doesn’t have a ground game.
Candidates like Michele Bachmann and Chris Dodd did ‘everything right’ in an Iowa ground game but ended up barely an afterthought.
Me love too ! :)
LoL New York Slimes.
Merry Christmas!
“A loss in Iowa for Mr. Trump, where he has devoted the most resources of his campaign, could imperil his leads in the next two nominating states, New Hampshire and South Carolina”
Or not.
The Slimes is just making stuff up. For example: “where he has devoted the most resources”. What resources? Trump says that so far he’s spent only a few million dollars total and as far as I know he’s done NO mass media advertising at all, whereas the other candidates in aggregate have spent close to 100 million in mass media advertising.
“I guess that sounds complicated to some. “
Well, I’m sure it DOES sound complicated to the shrinking IQ of The Slimes’ shrinking readership.
“Translating a personality-driven campaign to the voting booth is no easy feat”
Funny how The Slimes never expressed that concern about Obama’s personality-driven campaign. Perhaps the rule of personality translation difficulty doesn’t apply to affirmative action candidates.
What you are saying could happen and basically would have to happen for Trump to win.
The dude running his state campaign ran the Santorum campaign to a caucus win in
2012. So I guess he knows the ropes although he wore out his pick up truck going to each
county for Santorum whereas Trump is wearing out his jet just flying over the counties.
Merry Christmas and joyous New Year to you too.
Not to worry. Organizing for a February 1, 2016 caucus is best done immediately after January 1, 2016.
****************
Trump has had Chuck Laudner onboard as his State director from early on, back in Feb. 2015
before it was apparent he was running. Laudner is the one that ran Santorum’s winning IA campaign
back in 2012. He’s a native and knows IA so at least Trump isn’t just flying by the seat of is pants.
Here’s a good artice form back in Oct.
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/trumps-ground-game-iowa-soaring-aides-say-n445336
You always come up with interesting info. Thanks.
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