People Aren’t Really Appreciating Just How Bad Trump’s Campaign Has Been

[Rob L 3,811]

People Arent Really Appreciating Just How Bad Trumps Campaign Has Been

He is a neutron bomb that has gone off in the Republican Party, said one top aide to Romneys 2012 campaign.

Sure, Donald Trump had a disastrous week on the campaign trail, but at least he may have made history: Longtime political veterans say they cannot recall a candidate who has similarly and needlessly damaged himself quite so badly.

I have been around politics for 40 years, as a journalist and a participant, and I have never seen anything like this last week, said David Axelrod, President Barack Obamas longtime aide and now a CNN commentator.

Its not just Democrats who are amazed by the collapse. Underscoring the extent to which Trumps campaign has bewildered political professionals, Republicans are also shaking their heads at their candidates indifference to basic campaign norms ― a strategy that worked in the primaries, but is proving disastrous in the elections closing months.

I dont think weve ever seen anything quite like this, said David Kochel, a former strategist for Mitt Romney and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bushs presidential campaigns. To have a candidate who reflexively takes the bait on any perceived slight, picks needless fights with his own party after the convention, constantly punches down and obsesses with his own cable news coverage is something weve never seen before.

Trump has always been an asymmetrical candidate, flouting conventional wisdom in favor of a political style befitting a free-wheeling TV showman. But his past week has been a show featuring mainly self-immolation. He suggested that a Gold Star mother was not allowed to speak because of her Muslim faith, refused to endorse the speaker of the House ― a member of his own party ― for re-election, placed the onus on resolving the issue of sexual harassment in the workplace on the recipient of the harassment, and concocted, apparently out of whole cloth, a video of money being airlifted to Iran.