Donald Trump’s Top Adviser: ‘This Is Not A Hard Race’
Paul Manafort explains why his boss is “gonna win,” no prob.
Trump just has to be presidential enough in the first debate (no body parts mentioned), pick an experienced running mate, and run Clinton into the ground as a corrupt version of Barack Obama.
.. Manafort’s sunny vision may be a little skewed. Having made millions as an image crafter for foreign tyrants, he can’t help but see Trump as an easy lift by comparison.
.. “I will be surprised if he puts them out. I wouldn’t necessarily advise him to. It’s not really an issue for the people we are appealing to. His tax returns are incredibly complicated. I wouldn’t understand them, so how are the American people going to? The financial disclosure he put out gives the salient points,” Manafort said.
“The only people who want the tax returns are the people who want to defeat him.”
.. “The national polls are distorted,” Manafort said. “To get a national sample they rely too much on Hispanics from New York and California, which is where large populations are, but also where most of the radical Hispanics are.”
“But if you look at Hispanics in states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania and even Florida, you see a different picture. We’re going to target Hispanic voters in those and other swing states.”
.. “The message is going to be jobs, national security, terrorism, family values and education,” he said. “In that order.”
.. “If we get into the high 20s in those states with Hispanics, we will win them, and in Florida we can do even better if we do what we need to do in the Cuban community.”
.. “We’ll continue the rallies. That is Trump’s brand. We’ll do the broad themes at the big rallies. No one wants to change that.”
But, Manafort added, the campaign will assemble a state-of-the-art social media and on-the-ground operation.
.. The first presidential debate will be key. Needless to say, Trump won’t hesitate to attack Clinton in that and other debates. Attack is and has always been his only mode.
.. He seems himself more as the chairman of the board, than even the CEO, let alone the COO.”
.. There is little reason to worry that Trump’s abrasive attacks will backfire, Manafort insisted. “He’s not going to fundamentally change, though you have to say it right,” he said.
The main message about Clinton will be that as president, she would be “Obama Three” but with worse ethics. The prospect of another term for the current administration will be enough to convince voters, the president’s relatively strong recent job approval numbers notwithstanding.
.. Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar,rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.