It's the Ground Game, Stupid

[John Ebel]

Not am I now, nor have I ever been a neverTrumper.  I will confess that there have been some moments of extreme frustration with Mr. Trump's behavior where I have told myself and others that I could never vote for such a candidate. My dislike of Trump as a candidate has been twofold: One, that he has never been nor is he now a Conservative. Second, that from the brigade of  initial GOP candidates, Donald Trump demonstrated the fewest abilities required to win a general election.

In the brief time between now and the end of the GOP convention where Donald trump was nominated, he has proven me right in both of my chief suspicions.

But much worse than any of this is the appearance that Donald Trump doesn't really intend on winning the election. I am not much of a conspiracy theorist, still I would not be surprised to find that the initial purpose in Trump's campaign was to gain a following of 20% or so, then bolt the GOP taking that 20% third party and thereby handing the White House to Hillary. After all,Trump's friendly history with the Clintons does go back a long way. And for those of us who continue to be suspicious of his motives he has supplied ample fodder, sometimes on a daily basis. 

Last week he labeled his opponent a "Bigot" and two days later backtracked on the deportation of illegals. Alienating members of both the left and the right in a matter of only 48 hours. Unfortunately for Donald this is just SOP. I could easily provide 25 instances in which Donald Trump said or did the wrong thing politically. This is not exactly news.

However, now comes word that the Trump campaign has opened a fraction of campaign field offices that would be required to operate an effective ground game. In the 15 battleground states the Clinton campaign has 291 field offices while the Trump campaign has only 88. The Clinton campaign has spent in excess of $50,000,000 in media ad buys while the Trump campaign only talks of its plans to get started "soon".

Certainly the the GOP hierarchy is fully aware of these facts. Meaning that they are either tolerant of the incompetence or worse, complicit in it.

Would I like to see Hillary stopped from her occupation of the oval office?  Absolutely!  And while I admit that my conservative heart it is not in a Trump candidacy, it's troubling to find that Trump's heart apparently isn't in it either.