Name:   copperline - Subject:   The week in Trump Date:   6/22/2016 11:54:12 AM

More details over the weekend about the Trump campaign and his efforts to win the Presidency. 

In keeping with his presumed strategy of being an outsider, he has simply been avoiding the build out of a campaign organization or even making phone calls to drum up support from a Republican donor base.  For instance, given a list of 20 crucial contributors by the Republican National Committee, with advice that he should personally contact all of them to solicit their support…. Trump made 3-4 phone calls and then quit.  {http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/donald-trump-republican-national-committee-224403}   {http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/20/politics/donald-trump-gop-donors/}

My guess is that on each of those 4 calls to mega-donors, he was getting an ear-full of donor fears that he was wrecking the entire GOP agenda and hopes for the future.   So he quit making the calls, and  goes back to saying that he doesn’t need to build a consensus among his party.     He thinks he can command their cooperation, threaten to punish them if they don’t support him, and bank on his success in the primaries to be repeated in the general election.  No one but The Donald thinks that can happen.

The big donors are also wary that he will repeat his previous business methods in his campaign financing.   For example, he has loaned his campaign $30-40 million but will not completely rule out paying himself back.   Donors fear they will make their contributions and see their money used to refund Trump, Inc… and not really to win the election.   This is the same pattern he used to finance several failed businesses… soliciting investors based on confidence that he could make them rich but when he files for bankruptcy, everyone finds out that he has paid himself out and left the investors to deal with default.  

With the heavy donors sitting on the side lines, Trump is going to have to count on the Angry White Guys to send in their dollars instead.   We’ll see how well that works out.   Will we hear that the election was stolen by the ‘super rich’ who withheld support for the ‘people’s candidate’?   Only problem with that story line will be that Trump is arrogantly super-rich, and never really was a ‘people’s candidate’ to begin with.    Trump supporters are going to have to accept that The Donald only likes to play when things are going his way, and when they are not…. He won’t mind leaving his supporters behind and saying it wasn’t his fault.