Hope apparently springs eternal, if you’re a member of the Republican establishment watching the Donald Trump disaster unfurl. The latest in a series of “maybe this time he’ll become a serious candidate” moments has been provoked by Trump’s firing of campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.
“It’s probably a recognition that they’re going to … turn the page, so to speak, in terms of their strategy,” said Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 3 Senate Republican. “They’re trying to demonstrate that they sort of get it. And that they’re going to have to start moving in a different direction.”
Maaaybe, but … have you observed Donald Trump at all? It’s not like he was under Lewandowski’s influence and that was the only thing derailing his campaign. This seems like a more realistic assessment:
Granted anonymity to candidly assess the state of GOP relations with Trump, one top Republican aide said that it’s hard to see [senior adviser Paul] Manafort all of a sudden producing a more scripted candidate who doesn’t make GOP senators squirm on a daily basis: “The candidate’s the problem. I don’t think anybody can curtail [Trump] … I haven’t seen any evidence of it.”
Trump himself has said that in the post-Lewandowski era, the campaign will go a “little bit of a different route.” But it’s not clear that even Trump can predict what Trump will do or say moment to moment, so take that with only slightly fewer grains of salt than John Thune’s optimism.