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Trump Said to Lack Plan for Fundraising, Running Mate Vetting
More at the link.
So is he going to loan to his GE campaign?
On the cusp of the Republican nomination, Donald Trump has no blueprint for raising the estimated $1 billion he'd need to take on the Democrats and no process in place to begin vetting vice presidential contenders, according to multiple people familiar with the campaign.
He says he has no plan to win a contested convention in Cleveland, confident he can succeed on the first ballot. And one month into the leadership of Paul Manafort, the strategist Trump hired in late March to professionalize his campaign, the internal squabbling hasn’t died down.
The lack of long-term planning highlights one of the Republican party's biggest concerns about Trump: whether he can shift from insurgent bomb-thrower running on the force of his personality to Republican standard-bearer with a professional presidential operation. Trump's advisers defend their approach.
“I think the campaign is totally focused on winning the nomination on the first ballot and positioning for the race against Hillary Clinton," said Roger Stone, a longtime Trump ally, "and they’re well aware of both the opportunities and challenges they face in terms of fundraising and the vice presidency.”
Some Trump insiders say it’s hard to see much difference under Manafort so far – and suspect Trump still would have won the last few races without the changes to his campaign. Even Trump's early attempts to look more "presidential" have been uneven, with his trademark combativeness flaring again and his first formal foreign policy speech this week being widely panned.
“It’s hard to be a successful candidate wrangler when the candidate won’t be wrangled,” Republican strategist Alex Castellanos said of Manafort. “It’s pretty clear that Donald Trump is his own campaign strategist, campaign manager and chief tweeter.”
Trump’s campaign will certainly grow and become more efficient, Castellanos said. “There is little point in judging his campaign by the standards of any previous effort. This is a totally different animal,” he said.
Campaign manager Corey Lewandowski dismissed doubts, saying Trump and his aides have been underestimated before.
“This campaign has proven we can achieve things that others can’t,” Lewandowski said.
National party officials usually default to the nominee for convention program planning and hefty fundraising for down-ballot races, but no joint account between Trump and the Republican National Committee exists yet (Mitt Romney had one by April last election cycle) and it’s unclear if and when the campaign would take the reins. The Republican National Committee will have accounts in place "very shortly" -- for all three Republican candidates, said RNC spokesman Sean Spicer.
And not everyone is worried. Pennsylvania GOP chairman Rob Gleason, who was among the swing state leaders who Manafort has singled out for private meetings recently, said he thinks Trump aides “really want to get the party on board and they recognize that Donald Trump needs the Republican Party's organization to win in the fall.”
“It’s clear to me that the Trump campaign knows exactly what it’s doing,” Gleason said, adding that Trump will soon have the race clinched. "A lot of people are getting ready for Donald Trump.”
More at the link.
So is he going to loan to his GE campaign?