Trump Shakes Up Campaign Team, Getting More Aggressive

Riggs 8/17/2016 2:20 PM

Settled Sunday and announced this morning, the Trump campaign is shaking things up. Trump is promoting Kellyanne Conway to campaign manager and bringing in Stephen Bannon as campaign CEO. Paul Manafort, the Ukrainian/Russian-linked dude I wrote about yesterday, is maintaining his position. Many see this as a demotion for the hardened political consultant.

A bit on Kellyanne Conway (USA Today):

Conway brings her pollster and strategist background to the Trump camp and already serves as an adviser to the campaign. Promoting her to campaign manager will allow her to work more closely on messaging and traveling with Trump, according to the campaign’s statement.

A bit on Stephen Bannon:

Bannon comes to the Trump campaign after serving as an executive at Breitbart News, a conservative news site and blog. Although new to presidential campaigns, Bannon is set “to bolster the business-like approach of Mr. Trump’s campaign,” Trump’s camp said in a statement.

His hiring is considered by many to be another middle finger to the GOP establishment. Have to love seeing a blogger get the call up. Good for the industry.

The key here is that this is FANTASTIC news for all of us newsy smut bloggers. These moves everyone agrees will lead to more aggressiveness, more attacks, more bridge burning, more #content #content #content.

Here’s how CNN describes the move:

…adding two officials to top posts overseeing his struggling campaign and signaling a shift in campaign leadership toward a more aggressive style willing to go scorched earth in order to win.

Here’s how the New York Times describes the move:

…it indicates that the candidate — who has chafed at making the types of changes his current aides have asked for, even though he had acknowledged they would need to occur — has decided to embrace his aggressive style for the duration of the race.

The new crew has decided to roll out Trump’s anticipated ads 3 days earlier than planned. This too is a sign of increased aggression, as I highly doubt these ads to be anything less than vicious attacks on the Clinton machine (Fox):

Meanwhile, a senior Trump aide told Fox News the campaign will be rolling out TV ads Friday in the battleground states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and North Carolina.

This would be three days earlier than Manafort originally planned…

This all comes as the Donald’s campaign goes through its worst suck streak ever. It began when the Donald went after the dead marine’s parents and has only continued to go from bad to worse since. The clearest evidence of his struggles? The polls. He trails nationally by several points but, more concerning, he’s losing in basically every swing state.

These from 5 days ago:

And these are the poll averages from Real Clear Politics.

If the Donald doesn’t win Florida and he doesn’t win Ohio, he doesn’t win election. Simple. Math is math. He’s got a lot of catching up to do and he’s decided to do it by putting the pieces in place to launch an even more aggressive, more outsider-ish onslaught. Love it. Just get us to the debates with a race on our hands so we can see the dogfight we all deserve.


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