In the final weeks of the “campaign,” Himself’s organization is working overtime. Hoovering up the bucks.
Essentially dark in Virginia, pretty dim in Florida, rallying in 20,000-resident towns in North Carolina, it’s hard to see why the operation needs more dough. Field offices? We don’t need no steenking field offices. Ads? Don’t make me laugh. GOTV? RNC’s job, dude.
Whether or not there is any legit reason for large infusions of cash, the Self/Pence team has gone into fundraising overdrive. My GOP spambox is getting several emails a day, from Himself, Kellyanne, Eric. I figure Ivanka will be showing up any minute.
And the pitches are elegant in their utter delusion. Today, Himself “shared a memo” with me that Kellyanne wrote up for him:
Donald Trump must reach 270 electoral votes to win the presidency. We’ve outlined a map to show where we currently stand as well as the possible paths forward to win.
While we are not taking any state for granted, those colored red are states that we can safely assume will vote for Donald Trump. Blue states favor Hillary. Blank states are too close to call.
Here’s her map:
For those squinty old codgers like me, her breakdown claims
Over the past month, polls have shown us winning Iowa, Ohio, Maine, Florida, Nevada, and North Carolina. If we maintain our leads in those six states, we can reliably claim 266 electoral votes. Hillary can claim 193. But we’d still have 4 electoral votes to go.
Polls show us close in New Hampshire, Colorado, and Pennsylvania. Winning just any one of those states would lead us to victory.
We are currently executing a highly costly early voting push and get-out-the-vote operation to ensure identified Trump supporters make it to the polls before Election Day. We are also planning a $140 million-dollar ad blitz in battleground states to lead us to victory.
Polls show nothing of the sort, of course, and if past is prologue, the $140 million ad blitz is unlikely to materialize.
But the hardcore hustle is on. Rather than a generic “contribute” button, the email has a default “contribute $100” button. The email behind it in the stack is a similar fantasy-laden come-on.
All this bigly begging begs the question: Whatcha gonna do with all that dough, Donnie? Has anyone gotten it through your hair that it isn’t yours, that you can’t buy TV networks or hotels in Moscow with it?
Without doubt, the Self Organization will be billing Self/Pence for everything from plane rides to gold leaf toilet paper, but if the rubes are responding to these fairy tales, there’s going to be a pretty hefty slush fund left over on November 9th.
And the probability approaches 100% that Mr. Impulse Control is going to use it illegally. Watch this space. Or the federal docket.