Vote Trump, get back to the golden era of pistols in the Senate. pic.twitter.com/682xOFmPFf
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) June 14, 2016
Sam Stein, at HuffPo, on three of the individuals at the forefront of those responsible for getting us (and the GOP) into the current predicament…
It’s been roughly 40 days since Donald Trump became the presumptive presidential nominee of the Republican Party, and the mere fact of it hasn’t come to feel any less weird, or any less scary. It also means that the three people I had coffee and pastries with last Wednesday morning—Danny Diaz (Jeb Bush’s campaign manager), Jeff Roe (Ted Cruz’s campaign manager) and Alex Conant (Marco Rubio’s communications director)—have been able to process what the hell happened.
Well-compensated, highly intelligent and very publicly defeated, each one of them is still angry, both at Trump and at the media. Each one of them has theories about how we got to this very disconcerting place in American political history. And not one of them is prepared to vote for Trump.
The stories they told me over a 90-minute conversation at a bar called Black Jack in Washington DC provided an entirely different view of the campaign and of elite Republican thinking. They spoke with unusual candor about which strategies they pushed that they now regret, how they believe network executives conspired against their candidates, what a disaster the Republican convention will be and why a Hillary Clinton blowout may be upon us. This is what it’s like to lose to Donald Trump….
There were a bunch of times when people were like, “Well, this is going to do him in.” Like when he said John McCain wasn’t a war hero, or the Megyn Kelly menstruating comment, or making fun of a disabled reporter. Which one made you say, “This guy is smoked”?
Jeff Roe [Cruz]: All of the above. There was a time when you wondered if the bug was going to meet the windshield or not. But everything was brand-consistent. His brand was being politically incorrect: He’s saying everything that you’ve always wanted to say. You might not like it, but he’s speaking for you. He’s the billionaire blue-collar guy. That’s why this Mexican judge thing is different. That’s him looking out for himself, instead of him looking out for you.
Danny Diaz [Bush]: What’s different now is the electorate. He’s playing to a much broader field of people than he was in the primaries…
Let’s be nice to each other for a minute. What was a strategic decision that a rival campaign made that impressed you?
Jeff Roe [Cruz]: Bush’s manhandling of Romney was pretty impressive. I think Mitt was a big question mark at that point in the race. Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee, was flirting with the idea of entering the race in January 2015 but ultimately decided against it. He would have walked in with a ton of credibility, a ton of dough, a ton of institutional support, and really swamped that lane. It was interesting to watch how Bush was making donors saddle up. It was very clearly aimed at one dude.
Alex Conant [Rubio]: I would agree. I thought the early days with Jeb’s campaign, when he was able to lock down the Florida establishment and the Florida donor base—not only did that continue to be a long-term problem for us, it was very effectively done. And then I think the Cruz campaign showed an amazing amount of discipline through the summer. Partnering with Trump at the Iran rally was a really smart move. Our campaign manager said last fall that he thought the Cruz campaign was the best-run campaign in the race, and I think that held throughout…
Long Read: “SAD! Campaign gurus for Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio…”Post + Comments (189)