The upside of not using any of the army of establishment GOP political consultants is that you don’t end up with the same old crap. The downside is that some of those people really are experts.
Don the Con is running a scampaign and a con to fleece the rubes and the RNC (what’s the difference?). He’s lining his own pockets at the expense of his supporters. The irony is too delicious. In fact, the con has been Trump’s business model from forever. His taxes would be most interesting. What a guy.
No - even that would simply mean that they both reached the same number of people (500 x 400 = 200,000). Of course, there is no way that a Trump rally “reaches” 200,000 new people.
Swag can be sold for a nice profit, staffers not so much.
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Ben Carson was running rather the same kind of operation with his ‘campaign-book tour’.
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The Trump brand is really the extent of his business anymore. That’s one of the reasons I thought in the beginning he was doing this to inflate the value of the only product he is selling anymore - the name.
He cannot possibly sell enough swag to make all that swag profitable.
And the value of his sole product: “Trump”, will likely never recover from all of this.
Trump is a moron but I’m not sure you are correct on this. If he gets 30% of the vote that’s still at least 30 million people. Add in non-voting family members (you know - buying Trump action figures and Make America Racist lunchboxes) and you might have a market of 45 million folks who were obviously buying what Trump was selling both literally and figuratively. Even if only 10% of those people actually keep giving a poop - He may walk away from this better off than he was. I suspect that is part of the motivation for him to make it to the election and then whine about it being rigged etc.
Has anyone asked Jeff Zucker about the $20 large that Trump paid Corey Lewandowski last month? He’s ok with having someone on the air who continues to be on Trump’s payroll? Maybe its time to convene another bloggers panel, as Atrios would say.
As always, grifters gonna grift.
It is all about #5, making money for trump!
HA!
That would be, HELL NO!
From what I gathered was that 8mil was spent to create Trump websites. But who the fuck would want to visit a Trump website except another Trump ?
Two goods and a criticism, TPM!
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Good story and interesting facts.
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THANK YOU for using the word “spending” instead of the horrible CorpTalk “spend” (as a frickin’ noun).
But, there are some issues with the captions. Not limited to this article, but I see 4 of out 5 and that trips the Grammar Nazi alarm hardwired into my front lobe.
Caption #1 - No shaking of tiny little hands happening. Already pointed out.
#2 reads “Trump has spent more on arena rentals that campaign staff” THAN, not THAT.
#4 “‘Make America Great Again’ Hats are one of the major investments of the Trump campaign.” I know it’s hard to avoid thinking of German authoritarianism when writing about Trump, but we don’t capitalize run-of-the-mill nouns such as “Hats” in English.
#5 “Trump’s family and businesses have made more than $7 million this campaign.”. Unclear. They have made this much $$ FROM the campaign (and the suckers who fund it). They have probably made a heck of a lot more DURING the campaign from their enterprises, but that’s not the point the caption is trying to summarizing.
OK, I’ll stop being petty now.
(Edited: Sorry; didn’t mean to shout. Shouldn’t start a line with “#”.)
Ding!
Rallies do offer more benefits than reaching the people who come to them…those folks are going to vote Trump anyway. What it gets him is lead story on the local news in swing state cities, when he remembers to campaign in them. Local news stories are more watched and less critical than national ones, and more believed than paid for commercials. However Hillary can get all that and maybe more by visiting a local hospital or high school, without the expense of renting an arena. Even better, she can do an interview with a local anchor…that’s guaranteed 3 minutes on the top rated station in a market. That’s the smart way to do it.
The arenas made sense in the primaries. They allowed Trump to overshadow the 15 dwarfs. But as the Dem nominee, Hillary is always newsworthy, where ever she goes. CNN may not care about her hospital visit, but the locals will put her on the front page, and that is exactly as valuable as a Trump rally, plus it lets her hone in on a issue she knows will resonate in the swing state she is in.
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This is all you need to know.
in 2000 when he mulled making an independent run: “It’s very possible that I could be the first presidential candidate to run and make money on it.”
“He could end up turning a profit if he repaid himself for the campaign loans,” said Paul S. Ryan, a campaign finance expert with the Campaign Legal Center. “He could get all his money back plus the profit margin for what his campaign has paid himself for goods and services.”
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Harry Reid may be planning to do some maneuvering to bring Judge Garland up for a hearing in the lame duck session. The Rs can no longer say that they want the next president to make the SCOTUS pick since they know it’s not going to be donald.
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Anybody else remember way back in the distant mists of a couple of months ago. when one of Trump’s big selling points to voters was that he would be “self-funding” – that he didn’t need anyone else’s money because he had plenty of his own to fund his own campaign and therefore was beholden to no one?
And now he’s making the rounds sucking up to the usual GOP billionaire suspects, accepting six and seven-figure checks from them, spending millions on poorly-targeted spam, hawking hats and “gold cards,” and begging for small donations, all while steering millions to his cronies, and even directly into his own companies. Hmm, come to think of it, I guess “self-funding” does kinda fit…just in a different way.
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Trump’s profiting from a little grifting, as his business entities flourish while providing campaign-paid-for goods & services? The HELL you say!
–> My theory is Trump’s grifting is just getting started. For the last month of the campaign, all media credentials will be revoked (as Trump already revoked credentials for WaPost reporters). During those last 30 days, a reporter pool from “T-B-A [Trump-Breitbart-Ailes] Media” will handle all the interviews and reporting on Trump rallies & campaign events. Text & photos of the GOP candidate will be available…
and VOLUME PURCHASERS GET DISCOUNT PRICING!
By the way, on the subject of the Trump hats and T-shirts – one bright side is that they’re like a self-imposed Scarlet Letter for the very, very stupid.
And I can guaran-fuckin-tee you I will not be spending one red cent with any business, tradesman, or any other entity where I see the proprietor or any employee sporting any of Trump’s oh-so-fashionable HateWear.
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