One of the primary attractions to being a campaign aide is gauging whether your advice is having an impact, watching it play out, and then learning either way, positive or negative. One of the most frustrating parts about being an aide is working for a candidate that couldn’t care less what your advice may or may not be.

Thus, all those all-nighters, evaluations of numbers, analysis of questionnaires, and learning Russian, provides one no benefit at all, not when the candidate is Donald Trump, who seems bound and determined to “Do It My Way” (Maybe he spent too much time in New York and is a little too old). Or he has a military solution that should terrify all of us.

According to the New York Times, Trump’s aides are tired of the same old, same old, suggesting new things that might actually work, only to see the same old Trump, the one that worked once, in a very different election:

Some midlevel aides on the campaign have even begun inquiring about employment on Capitol Hill after the election, apparently under the assumption that there will not be a second Trump administration for them to serve in. (It is not clear how appealing the Trump campaign might be as a résumé line for private-sector employers.)

Ideally, it is when they start reaching out for those other “DC-type jobs” when they learn – rather quickly – that the Trump stench doesn’t come out through a couple trips to the dry cleaners.

 He has portrayed himself as a victim, dodged questions about his own coronavirus testing, attacked his attorney general and the F.B.I. director and equivocated on the benefits of mask-wearing. Rather than drawing a consistent contrast with Mr. Biden on the economy, strategists say, the president’s preference is to attack Mr. Biden’s son Hunter over his business dealings and to hurl personal insults like “Sleepy Joe” against a candidate whose favorability ratings are much higher than Mr. Trump’s.

Anyone who at this late date hasn’t figured out that Trump isn’t going to be using every minute to express how unfair this whole thing has been so unfair to him and he is the ultimate victim isn’t qualified to work the night shift at your local gas station.

“A lot of Republican consultants are frustrated because we want the president’s campaign to be laser-focused on the economy,” said David Kochel, a Republican strategist in Iowa. “Their best message is: Trump built a great economy” and Covid-19 damaged it, and Mr. Trump is a better option than Mr. Biden to restore it, he said. 

No doubt, of all his messages, that’s the best one. The problem is that the Americans have pretty well figured out – especially as COVID is starting to rise again, that the economy isn’t coming back until COVID is gone and Trump had his shot at that and failed, miserably. Moreover, concentrating on the economy doesn’t let Trump talk about how they spied on his campaign and how terrible everyone was to him – and that needs to be said, accord to Trump.

Get those resumes ready, women and men. Because it is only going to get uglier and you’re not going to want to be associated with the guy down in the bunker, ordering around anyone with a gun who will still listen to keep them all out and let him buy the White House, he has the money … if you’ll take a check.

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Peace, y’all
Jason
[email protected] and on Twitter @MiciakZoom