Via Reuters :
Donald Trump’s national finance team held its first official meeting on Thursday amid growing concerns about the Republican presidential candidate’s lack of a campaign infrastructure, his attacks on a Mexican-American judge, and the realization that Trump’s flame-throwing instincts have yet to be reined in.
The meeting at New York City’s Four Seasons Hotel took place two years after such a gathering would normally occur in the traditional realm of U.S. politicking.
Presidential contenders typically organize their fundraising operations long before they declare their candidacies. Trump, a wealthy celebrity businessman, became the Republicans’ presumptive nominee for the Nov. 8 presidential election last month after seeing off 16 rivals in a largely self-funded primary campaign.
His late start on fundraising is widely considered a steep structural handicap among top Republican donors, who question whether Trump can achieve his previously stated aim of raising $1 billion before November. On the Democratic side, presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton’s well-oiled operation is well ahead of schedule.
With Trump at the meeting were his chief strategist, Paul Manafort, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus and Republican fund-raisers Ray Washburne and Lew Eisenberg.
Already, top donors are saying Trump is unlikely to hit $1 billion.
The reluctant Trump supporters in the upper echelons of the GOP keep expressing surprise and/or dismay at the fact that Trump hasn’t toned things down or been “reined in” yet. If they truly thought this was a possibility, it’s further proof that the party has transcended clueless. Trump is a 69-year-old man who has never had a filter, he isn’t going to develop one overnight, especially simply because some people he deems inferior are exhorting him to.
The portion of the electorate that has propelled Trump to this point are attracted to the very things that the “Harumph!” wing of the GOP finds problematic. When they say they want him to be more of what their vision of a proper candidate is, they are asking him to do a 180 from the version of him that his supporters love.
It isn’t just the Trump faithful who are in love with the lack of a connection between Trump’s brain and mouth, however. Trump himself sees it as an asset. He is very much adopting an attitude of, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” now. He’s earned the right. The idiots who let him rise to power have no real basis for their claims that he needs to be the kind of candidate they view as a winning candidate.
That’s largely because they rarely win.
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