STEVE BANNON ON POLITICS AS WAR: Kimberley Strassel in the Wall St. Journal interviews Trump adviser Steve Bannon. Fascinating read. (Warning: I got the link via google and it went around the paywall. Others may not be so lucky.)
Mr. Bannon’s role in the Trump campaign was never made clear, though fellow adviser Kellyanne Conway called him the campaign’s “general” and a “brilliant tactician.” Mr. Bannon describes a close alliance of himself, Ms. Conway and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, who developed a very “tight strategy” that relied on targeted speeches, rallies and social media. They envisioned two possible paths to the White House: one that hinged on Nevada and New Hampshire; the other that “leveraged Ohio” and rolled up Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin. By the last week they saw the latter plan coming together.
The claim that the Trump campaign was chaotic in the final months is wrong, Mr. Bannon says. It benefited from “excellent data” furnished by the Republican National Committee and an operation in San Antonio set up by Mr. Kushner. The campaign was looking closely at “rural communities and the hinterlands that held a lot of votes,” which the Clinton campaign had “basically ceded” to Republicans. Mrs. Clinton also made the mistake of trying to “close the deal on a coalition” (minorities, millennials) that “she’d never closed on before.”
Mrs. Clinton aside, the reason Mr. Trump won, he says, “is not all that complicated. The data was overwhelming: This is a change election. People weren’t happy with the direction of the country. So all you had to do was to give people permission to vote for Donald Trump as an agent of change, make sure he articulated that message.” That, and paint Mrs. Clinton as “the guardian of a corrupt and incompetent elite and status quo.” Mr. Bannon believes Mr. Trump to be uniquely suited to make the case, as “one of the best political orators in American history, rated with William Jennings Bryan.”
Additional thought: “Mr. Trump “knows how to mix and match, get the best out of people, and I think it says something about what a historic figure he could be.”
If you can get past the paywall, read the whole thing.