Blame game

Strategists play blame game over Trump's rise

By Nolan D. McCaskill

Republican and Democratic strategists marveled at the phenomenon of Donald Trump on Monday as they debated where to lay blame for the success of the political outsider whom pundits originally wrote off as a joke.

Fortunately, according to the panel of veteran Democratic and GOP operatives, there’s enough blame to go around — from the media, who’ve given the New York billionaire near nonstop coverage, to the Republican rivals who were too patient to challenge him, to polls that dictated who was and wasn’t important.

“There’s a big difference between broadcasting and journalism. When you just turn the cameras on and allow somebody like Donald Trump to have this roadblock coverage of every single event and every single news conference, I think it does [require] where journalists have to come in, I think, and offer that filter,” Kevin Madden, a partner at Hamilton Place Strategies and former press secretary for John Boehner, told POLITICO’s Mike Allen during a panel discussion on the state of the 2016 race. “I would have hoped that they had done more during this case, but I don’t think it’s much of a blame thing as it is an explain thing.”

Trump has given the media unprecedented access for a presidential campaign, and in return for the ratings he brings, he’s also gotten unprecedented access to free media. Though Trump often skirts answering questions directly, constantly veering off topic to go on a series of tangents, he does take questions willingly and is given more access than traditional candidates who are often required to appear on-screen. Trump is generally allowed to phone in.

“It is such a fascinating, different way of campaigning that oftentimes a lot of media outlets can’t help but just show it,” Madden said. “And then I think there’s also the pressure of ratings. But on the flip side, you have never seen a campaign offer this level of access to the media.”

Mike DuHaime, a partner at Mercury Public Affairs and Chris Christie campaign veteran, pointed to a host of issues responsible for Trump’s rise, such as his primary opponents and the heightened emphasis on polls.

“I think too many people discounted him at the outset,” DuHaime said. “I don’t think we ever had a reality TV star come in and run for office before, and he’s run this like a reality television show program, and with so many candidates on the Republican side, the early national polls actually had real implications, whereas in previous campaigns, it really didn’t matter.”

Indeed, in a crowded Republican field, polls determined who qualified for the top-tier debates, which presented an opportunity to challenge the front-runner in a prime-time event on a national stage.

Stephanie Cutter, a partner at Precision Strategies and President Barack Obama’s 2012 deputy campaign manager, said there was a lot of blame to go around but largely attributed Trump’s success to being immune from the rules. That made Trump immeasurable by traditional standards. His lack of a ground game and fundraising had little impact, if any, on his dominant run throughout the Republican primaries and caucuses, though his lackadaisical effort could ultimately cost him the nomination at a contested convention.

Trump’s social media use has also been unprecedented. The real-estate mogul has often driven the political conversation from his cellphone in less than 140 characters by attacking whoever comes to mind.

“It’s not just that he’s using social media. It’s what he’s saying on social media that is really making the difference,” Cutter said. “He’s insulting. He’s saying things that nobody would ever say about their opponents or a public official or a media anchor, and it’s really, you know, it’s a race to the bottom for him on what he’s saying. So that’s grabbing attention.”

Any insult Trump launches online becomes headline news on cable networks, Cutter argued. But to Trump’s credit, Madden added, he’s been able to create and drive his own news cycle.

“The other thing is he’s used social media to make this a substance-free campaign. This is not a campaign that is about issues or white papers,” Madden said. “Instead, it is a campaign that is much more focused on the attributes that the different candidates have.”

Perhaps the biggest blame will go to the 16 candidates who were set to challenge Trump but hardly presented much of a challenge at all. Many didn’t take Trump seriously until it was too late.

Madden said hope is what plagued many of Trump’s opponents, in the sense that they believed anyone but themselves would be responsible for stopping Trump.

“I think they believed that Donald Trump was somebody else’s fight to have, and as a result they didn’t believe it was their job to sort of shape the perceptions of the electorate overall about Donald Trump. They believed it was either up to somebody else in the campaign or the media,” he said, adding that the four things the media cover are polls, money, scandals and attacks. “The only person attacking during this campaign was Donald Trump. And when the opposing campaigns decided to attack Donald Trump, it was way too late.”

The billionaire lost Iowa to Ted Cruz by 3 percentage points but steamrolled his way to double-digit victories in New Hampshire and South Carolina.

“Once that happened, it was over, and then everyone started to wring their hands and the [Republican National Committee] and everybody, and then they said let’s do something,” DuHaime said. “It’s too late. Historically, once somebody wins two out of the first three, it is over.”

Trump is likely to win the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, but Madden suggested Trump’s chances at winning the White House sit at just 25 percent. But, as DuHaime warned, 2016 has been the year of the outsider.

“Nothing that he has said during the course of his campaign has supplanted the basic fact that he is not a politician,” DuHaime said. “Everybody else was, and that’s what people are sick of.”