(CNN) Donald Trump’s campaign said Saturday it has fired top political adviser Roger Stone — who promptly denied being let go and insisted he had quit.
Stone’s disassociation from the Trump operation Saturday highlights the campaign’s seeming lack of veteran political advisers, even as the 2016 season is ramping up in earnest. And the dispute opens a window into two different factions of the campaign: one side that wants to maintain Trump’s high visibility by capitalizing on his public feuds and bombastic rhetoric, and another that wants to pull the candidate toward more disciplined political strategy.
The episode caps a tumultuous few weeks for Trump’s presidential campaign, which recently cut ties with two men accused of writing inflammatory Facebook posts. Trump, who is currently leading national polls, delivered an explosive performance at the first GOP debate in Cleveland Thursday, and went on to make inflammatory comments about Fox News host Megyn Kelly in an interview on CNN Friday night.
Jill,
Ames is hardly a reliable source and he gets a lot wrong, such as his attack on Gary Johnson and perpetuating the lie that Perot caused Clinton to be elected.
But he gets a lot right, especially about Stone and Trump and their antics over the years. His conclusion is spot on:
For your amusement:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-08-13/behind-scenes-donald-trump-roger-stone-show
Never even mind that. How are the views that Stone expresses at https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2015/08/roger-stone-has-op-ed-published-how-donald-trump-can-win-the-us-presidency even remotely compatible with libertarianism?
Consider: https://tucker.liberty.me/trumpism-the-ideology
http://reason.com/blog/2015/07/13/the-idiocracy-candidate
https://reason.com/blog/2015/07/13/hey-donald-trump-sanctuary-cities-are-sa
http://reason.com/archives/2015/07/06/trump-and-the-myth-of-immigrant-crime
http://reason.com/blog/2015/06/30/donald-trump-is-a-blowhard-idiot-especia
Then there’s the rank idiocy of endorsing someone you know is a dirty trickster.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpion_and_the_Frog
You lay down with the dogs, you wake up with the fleas. Come on now folks, have some sense.
The best comment I read about this subject was “Before the Florida LP makes Roger Stone their nominee maybe they should ask why being mean to Megan Kelly was the last straw? And not calling for Edward Snowden’s assaination or a number of other horrible things?”.
I know you know but for anyone who doesn’t:
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2015/07/rachel-maddow-dispels-common-myth-that-perot-cost-bush-the-election/
“Grrrr. I really wish people would stop repeating this lie.”
https://www.facebook.com/RandPaul/videos/10153262524826107/?pnref=story
Mostly true, but Trump did get in a feud with some other elements of the Republican/Conservative base that he did not have before. Red State invited him before, but disinvited him after. Any Trump fans who also happen to be Faux News/Megyn Kelly fans will now have to decide which one they side with, and they won’t all come down on the same side.
Aside from that an August Odd Year debate will be long forgotten by the time anyone actually votes, with many debates between now and then and many other things to take up the 24 hour news cycle.
True. Their main objective in these things should and probably will be to be noticed as little as possible and not say anything really dumb that is particularly memorable. Letting Trump in the middle and the guys on the far ends of the stage duke it out is perfect for them as it allows them to go mostly unnoticed, but still there. If people remember they were there and nothing else about them being there that’s pretty much perfect for them.
Seems plausible. Although, if the Democrats have a woman at the top of the ticket, Repubicans having a woman at the bottom won’t do nearly as much for them (especially since they already tried it before), and if they do want to go there Susana Martinez would let them check off the Latina box at the same time, which they need if anything even more badly. Sure, Cruz or Rubio could do that for them too, but they are Cuban-American and most Cuban-Americans are already solidly Republican, whereas most other Latin-Americans are not, and many of them aren’t all that fond of Cubans anyway. If Cruz or Rubio actually manage to snag the top of the ticket they are unlikely to go with a Hispanic VP pick, but them getting the top of the ticket doesn’t seem all that likely to me.
My takeaway from the debate’s impact on the horserace, are mainly that it didn’t have one at all. All ten candidates are still in roughly the same place and on the same trajectory that they were before. Maybe Rubio and Kasich get a slight bump, but that’s it. Neither Bush ($$$) nor Walker (Iowa) are dependent on debate performances.
The only candidate who got a breakout from it was, ironically, Fiorina, in a way she probably wouldn’t have being in the “main” debate. But that just mean’s she’s bumped up from no-shot to long-shot, and a more likely selection for VP. I said a while ago my predicted ticket is Bush/Fiorina, and I stand by that.
I don’t think that is a lot of money by his standards, although perhaps he has had to lower them given his recent track record.
See my comments on this on the open thread today. He won plurality, but may (or may not – I don’t know yet) have hurt himself more than he helped himself.
From that link:
True, they are clearly not fringe. The rest is largely accurate.
Not the best news for Walker and Jeb, especially Walker. Pre-debate polls had them in second and third place.
Randall obiously did not help himself, as previously noted. Neither did Christie, who also figured disproportionately in post-debate coverage and analysis.
A lot of the analysts seem to think Kasich was a breakout, although the above poll has him around the middle of the pack.
On the TV shows I watched I did not really hear too many of them say they were impressed by Rubio, Carson, Cruz or Huckabee, although those candidates did relatively well in this poll. A big unanswered question here is whether Trump hurt himself among the 72% that did not think he won more than he helped himself among the 28% who thought he did. Since he is a polarizing figure I would guess a lot of people really dislike him, probably more than before. We shall see.
Because the smart thing for them to do would be to openly embrace naked prejudice? I don’t think so. They probably need about 40% of the Latino vote to win. I don’t think they’ll get it with Mr. Trump, nor with a party that is seen to be welcoming to him, his views and the bigots that are cheering him on for expressing them in such an ugly way.
Grrrr. I really wish people would stop repeating this lie. Bush lost because of Bush, not because of Perot. Exit polls as well as polls before, during and after Perot dropped out prove it beyond the shadow of a doubt, as do Bush’s approval ratings during that time frame, yet this pesky myth persists like the energizer bunny of blatant bullshit.
Trump won debate?
The actual link is
http://www.redstate.com/2015/08/08/donald-trump-conservative-fringe/
The claimed poll outcomes from likely primary voters:
Winners
Trump-28%
Rubio-20%
Carson-11%
Paul, Christie, Walker-2% each
There is also a graph of economic and social stands of supporters. The graph shows circles of different sizes corresponding to the amount of support, plotting social against economic liberalism and conservatism. There is a trend line. The Trump average is square in the middle of the trend line. Stands went only from “moderate” to “conservative”. If the Republicans excommunicate the Trump supporters, they tear out the heart of their party, not a fringe. It is noteworthy that the “undecided” circle is at the left edge on both issues.
Stone was one of those hacks that Trump should have never hired in the first place. Glad he go rid of him. Dick Morris would do a better job.
Stone was reportedly getting paid $4,000 per week by Trump. It must have been nice while it lasted.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Stone was actually fired. Considering he hasn’t worked on a winning campaign in a couple of decades, Stone probably couldn’t offer any useful advice to start with.
Couldn’t find the video embed, and the video link was not working either. Left aligned the image and gave up.
One suspects Stone’s close ties to his fellow Nixonian Roger Ailes and Fox’s War on Trump may have something to do with it.
D’oh. I usually know that. If you can add the video embed to it you should do that. I couldn’t get that to work.
Probably best to cut this one down to excerpt rather than full article. We had lawsuit threats from corporate news sources before. Ful article is more OK if it’s press releases, party and candidate blog posts on their sites, that sort of thing.
Here’s part of the Stone interview from CNN. I don’t know if this particular clip includes the part where Stone says he is a registered libertarian.
I’m convinced Roger Stone exists to make Dick Morris look better