Four months after endorsing Mr. Trump, Mr. Christie remains one of the few major figures in the Republican establishment to align himself entirely with Mr. Trump’s candidacy. In public, he has defended Mr. Trump’s freewheeling and sometimes offensive pronouncements, vouching for him even after Mr. Trump attacked a federal judge for his Mexican heritage. (Mr. Christie said he knew from personal experience that Mr. Trump was not a racist.)
.. Behind the scenes, Mr. Christie has prodded his fellow governors and Republican political donors to line up behind a candidate many view with distaste. He has made only modest headway in the last few months: Mr. Trump has struggled badly with fund-raising, and Mr. Christie has pleaded with donors in personal phone calls and at fund-raising events to give him a second look.
.. At a breakfast fund-raiser in Manhattan last week, Mr. Christie cajoled reluctant donors to back Mr. Trump, arguing that giving anything less than enthusiastic support would be a de facto vote for Hillary Clinton.
.. Mr. Christie’s new role is a stark transformation from a boastfully independent blue-state politician determined to win over female, Hispanic and Asian voters, to the right-hand man of the most culturally polarizing presidential candidate in a generation.
.. Mr. Christie has also acknowledged to friends that Mr. Trump seized much of the political space Mr. Christie had hoped to occupy in his own presidential run — that of a blunt leader with an expansive media profile and a forceful message on terrorism.
.. Mr. Trump thanked Mr. Christie for his political advice and his sophisticated grasp of government — and, perhaps most of all, for his part in demolishing Senator Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign.
Paul Manafort has a history of working for strong men.
Over a 40-year career as a lobbyist and political consultant, Manafort and his firms have advised, in no particular order, a business group tied to Ferdinand Marcos, the dictator of the Philippines; Viktor Yanukovych, the ousted Ukrainian president and ally of Vladimir Putin; and Lynden Pindling, the former Bahamian prime minister who was accused of ties to drug traffickers.
Now, he works for Donald Trump.
.. Manafort comes with the right calling card: He fiercely protected Gerald Ford’s delegates at the last contested convention in 1976, in what Bay Buchanan, national treasurer for Ronald Reagan’s insurgent campaign, called “hand to hand” combat.
.. “You’re down to the number of people you can count and meet,” Buchanan said, noting that Manafort didn’t lose a single Ford delegate. “If you’re not tough, you will lose. To suggest he’s tough is saying he’s competent.”
.. “They’re close in age, so Trump doesn’t look to him like he’s some kid. He brings a level of professionalism to the Trump operation at an important time because they have to pivot
.. He made a name for himself working for leading Republican figures, including Ford, Reagan, Dole and George H.W. Bush.
The controversial clients Manafort has represented have paid him and his firms millions of dollars and form a who’s who of authoritarian leaders and scandal-plagued businessmen in Ukraine, Russia, the Philippines and more.
.. In 1985, Manafort and his first lobbying firm, Black Manafort Stone & Kelly, signed a $1m contract with a Philippine business group to promote dictator Ferdinand Marcos just a few months before his regime was overthrown and he fled the country.
.. And in 2010, Manafort helped pro-Russian candidate Viktor Yanukovych remake his tarnished image and win a presidential election in Ukraine.
.. The financial dividends that the globetrotting 67-year-old Manafort reaped from these clients and others are palpable: he has homes in Alexandria, Virginia, Palm Beach, Florida, and the Hamptons, in New York, where his house is valued at almost $5.3m, according to property records. For good measure, Manafort has a condo in Trump Tower.
.. Similar issues about Manafort have arisen before: his work in Ukraine sparked a decision not to bring him on board as John McCain’s convention manager in 2008, according to people close to the McCain campaign.
.. Ed Rollins, who managed Ronald Reagan’s 1984 campaign, told the Guardian that Manafort did a “good job” working for him as convention manager. “He’s a good operative and will help Trump.”
.. “Paul has become the public face of the campaign in addition to Trump and has the authority to speak for Trump, which nobody has really had before,” said Charlie Black, his lobbying partner for almost 15 years at Black Manafort Stone & Kelly.
.. irritated Trump, whom Manafort likes to call the “boss”, GOP sources say.
.. Eyebrows have also been raised over several new hires on Manafort’s brief watch, which include a few ex-lobbyists and consultants – such as Rick Gates, who handled some Ukraine-related projects for Manafort in largely administrative functions – who have little campaign experience.
.. Manafort’s ties with Trump stretch back a long way: Trump turned to Manafort’s first lobbying firm in Washington in the late 80s for lobbying help for the Trump Organization. Trump forged close ties with Manafort’s then partner Roger Stone, who became a confidante of the billionaire and is now an informal campaign adviser who had a role in promoting Manafort’s hiring.
.. But Manafort’s work in Ukraine and his links to some scandal-plagued business figures, such as the oligarchs Firtash and Deripaska, and the arms dealer Abdul Rahman el-Assir, could wind up embarrassing the Trump campaign
.. Manafort has been credited with helping to reshape Yanukovych’s image to make him a more appealing candidate in 2010 by, among other things, getting him to speak Ukrainian instead of Russian, which he had done in past campaigns.
.. sources say that Manafort would meet periodically with high-level officials in the US embassy in Kiev and often tout Yanukovych’s pro-free market and pro-business views with an eye to buffing his image. Manafort’s job wasn’t easy, say people familiar with Yanukovych. “His client was somebody who had a very troubled reputation,” said former Bush State Department official David Kramer.
.. In an interview with Fox News on Sunday, he defended his work for Yanukovych: “The role I played in that administration was to help bring Ukraine into Europe and we did.”
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.