Reading this CNN story on Trump's "unconventional" ground game took me back to watching the behind-the-scenes drama Game Change, about the McCain campaign’s unraveling from within in ‘08 at the hands of one temperamental and utterly ill-prepared Sarah Palin. Donald Trump's campaign staff and RNC officials are trying to put on a brave face, but inside, chaos is clearly eating them alive.
Rather than building out teams of his own hires in swing states -- the model previous nominees like Mitt Romney and John McCain relied on -- Trump is signaling to the Republican National Committee and state parties that he will rely on them to take the lead in organizing key toss up states.
"I'll say that as far as building the infrastructure of a campaign, the RNC has been doing it for many years," Trump said at a news conference late last month in North Dakota.
Absolutely, rely on the RNC, especially after Reince Priebus' flawless execution of the GOP rebranding after the post-2012 "autopsy." Oh wait, here's a little bump in the road ...
Meanwhile, RNC officials still aren't even sure where the campaign has already deployed staffers. Trump's field organization is a patchwork of aides, some paid, some retained on a volunteer basis and many left over from the Republican primaries. While he has campaign chiefs in Florida -- and solidly blue states like Washington and New York -- in crucial battlegrounds including Ohio and Colorado, Trump doesn't have so much as a state director.