Looks Like We’ve Got A Pivot

Being strapped of cash is only part of Trump’s problem. Trump’s campaign has fewer than 100 staffers. He boasts how “efficient” his operation is, with 73 employees. Clinton is estimated to already have around 800 paid staffers. Those are people that can be used to register voters and then get them to the polls in key states. You could believe Trump’s boast that his campaign is more “efficient” and that his constant presence on TV compensates for a smaller staff. Or you could look to history: By August of 2012, Obama had 901 people on his payroll, Romney had 403.

But there are signs that the Trump campaign is actually going to try to win this thing. Lewandowski got fired as campaign manager, and Trump has actually hired, you know, staff leaders, which bodes will for getting actual staffers out there.

Hillary Clinton gave an economics speech yesterday, and reporters and pundits were flooded with emails responding to her points. Yes, he apparently has a rapid response team now. All earmarks of a legit presidential candidate.

And he’s going to be raising money. That might be a little bit harder, for a couple of reasons.

First, he said that when Clinton raises money, it is “blood money”, meaning, he explained, that she is obligated to do things in return for that money. It will be weird to say that and then start raising money on his own. How is that not “blood money”?

Secondly, Clinton has raised a lot of money from small donors. People like you and me. In tens and twenties. Trump can’t do that easily. For one thing, he boasts about how rich he is. Why would his (poorly educated and probably not wealthy redneck) mass of followers who believe him give him money? His whole shtick is that he doesn’t need it.

Thirdly, many large campaign donors have already said they will not donate to Trump, as they do not think he is a suitable candidate. In other words, for Trump to raise the kind of money he needs, he has to change. This is something he has shown an unwillingness (or, I suspect, inability) to do. He has been notably undisciplined the past few weeks — from his racially tinged criticism of a federal judge to his off-key, self-congratulatory response to the Orlando terrorist attack — and this has discouraged donors and leery Republicans who’d still been trying to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Trump himself vowed Tuesday to match any soft money contributions made over the following 48 hours up to $2 million, another effort to portray the situation as far from bleak but one that could backfire should donors believe that the campaign’s finances are in good shape. $2 million isn’t very much if you’re a billionaire (which is one-thousand million), leading many to see this as further evidence that Trump is not a billionaire.

“Part of the problem is he keeps saying, ‘I’m gonna put that kind of money in,’ which makes it very difficult for donors and — and someone like myself to try and raise money for him in a super PAC,” Ed Rollins, who formed a pro-Trump super PAC that has failed to gain traction, said Tuesday during an appearance on Fox Business Network. “People say ‘Well, he says he can buy it himself. Let him put the money in.’”

Trump is set to give a speech today that will seek to outline his argument against Clinton, who made her first, focused speech criticizing him nearly a month ago. Seven weeks after securing the GOP nomination, Trump has struggled to fully pivot into general election mode. Many observers both inside and outside the campaign will be watching for signs that Trump has reined in his shoot-from-the-hip excesses. I expect it to be a telepromptered speech, and to be rather flat. Even one off color aside will make it a failure.

UPDATE: Trump’s speech apparently was not telepromptered, but was pretty much the same-old same-old:

Donald Trump slammed Hillary Clinton on Wednesday for her actions during her time as secretary of state, specifically her policy toward the Middle East and allegations that she lied to the families of soldiers killed in the Benghazi attacks.

In a speech punctuated by supporters’ applause at Trump SoHo in New York City, the real estate mogul outlined what he feels are failings in Clinton’s foreign policy record. Trump maintained that Clinton’s record has been “one deadly foreign policy disaster after another” and that she has “virtually done nothing right.”

“No secretary of state has been more wrong, more often and in more places than Hillary Clinton,” he said. “Her decisions spread death, destruction and terrorism everywhere she touched.”

Trump slammed Clinton for her actions during the attack on Benghazi, a common talking point for him and his surrogates. He said she was sleeping when she received a call for help from the Chris Stevens, the ambassador to Libya who was killed in the attacks, a claim that has since been debunked.

“When the phone rang, as per the commercial, at 3:00 in the morning, Hillary Clinton was sleeping,” he said. “Ambassador Stevens and his staff in Libya made hundreds and hundreds of requests for security. They were desperate. They needed help. Hillary Clinton’s State Department refused them all. She started the war that put them in Libya, denied him the security he asked for then left him there to die.”

He also blasted Clinton’s support for allowing more Syrian refugees into the United States, characterizing that position as an attack on women and LGBT people.

“Hillary Clinton wants to bring in people who believed women should be enslaved and gays put to death,” he said. “Maybe her motivation lies among the more than 1,000 foreign donations Hillary failed to disclose while at the State Department. Hillary Clinton may be the most corrupt person ever to seek the presidency of the United States.”

Trump painted himself as a better ally to Israel than Clinton and criticized her approach to the Middle East, arguing she is to blame for the rise of the Islamic State terror group.

“In just four years, Secretary Clinton managed to almost single-handedly destabilize the entire Middle East,” he said. “Her invasion of Libya handed the country over to ISIS. Thanks to Hillary Clinton, Iran is the dominant islamic power in the Middle East and on the road to nuclear weapons.”

Of course, Clinton’s private email server made several appearances in the speech, with Trump wrapping up his thoughts on foreign policy by saying that having the server disqualified her from being president.

“So (our enemies) probably now have a blackmail file over someone who wants to be the president of the United States,” he said. “This fact alone disqualifies her from the presidency. We can’t hand over our government to someone who’s deepest, darkest secrets may be in the hands of our enemies. Can’t do it.”

I highlight that last part because it so Trump. Another little conspiracy theory without any basis. Note how he says “probably” in the first sentence, without any factual basis, and then begins the next sentence with “That fact alone….”. And people actually fall for this.

Still, it was a pivot of sorts. He read from a script and avoided stupid terms like “Crooked Hillary”.

But here’s the thing about pivots. Once you do it, you can’t pivot back. Can Trump do that?