Go Figure. Donald Trump Is Capable of Making a Change When Needed.
This is genuinely surprising: Donald Trump is willing to acknowledge when his approach isn't working and make changes -- at least behind closed doors: Looking to resolve a growing power struggle within his campaign, Donald Trump announced Thursday he is expanding the role of Paul Manafort, the senior adviser recently hired to assist with corralling delegates ahead of what will likely be a contested GOP convention in July. Hours after canceling a Friday news conference that had been scheduled in the Los Angeles area, Trump's campaign issued a statement that he is "consolidating the functions related to the nomination process and assigning them to" Manafort, who "will oversee, manage, and be responsible for all activities that pertain to Mr. Trump's delegate process and the Cleveland Convention." The statement also says that Manafort, a longtime ally of Trump confidant Roger Stone, will be "[w]orking closely with Campaign Manager Corey R. Lewandowski and Deputy Campaign Manager Michael Glassner." This is where I'm supposed to chuckle and snort about the Trump campaign being in chaos, but this is probably a needed and wise move. Corey Lewandowski's headline-grabbing, reporter-grabbing style took the Trump campaign as far as it could; now it needs to (1) focus on getting as close to 1,237 delegates as possible, (2) unite the party, and make Trump seem like a palatable choice to as many current Trump skeptics as possible, and (3) do something to try to bring up Trump's currently abysmal favorable numbers. Not an easy task, but you probably have a better shot with the guy who worked, in one role or another, in every Republican nominee's presidential campaign from 1976 to 2008. Sure, Manafort spent the last few years hanging around with deposed Ukrainian prime minister Viktor Yanukovich, but it's worth seeing how things work with Manafort having a larger role -- and whether the style of the Trump campaign can change, or whether it's "baked in the cake" of the candidate's personality. Stephen Hayes is skeptical that the candidate can change much; he writes, "Hoping that Trump can be a policy wonk is like wishing your mule could become a thoroughbred." But Trump has to at least try . . . Speaking of delegates… Hey, This Cruz Team Looks Like They Know What They're Doing! Isn't it delightfully refreshing to watch a presidential campaign that sweats the details, like delegate-selecting district conventions? Ted Cruz added to his lead in Colorado, winning three more national delegates Thursday to boost his total to nine. The Texas senator found deep support at the 7th Congressional District convention in Arvada among pledged and unpledged delegates, much like he did Saturday when he swept all six slots award at two conventions. Of the three alternates selected, two are committed Cruz supporters and one, Jefferson County GOP Chair Don Ytterberg, is unpledged . . . Colorado will award 12 more national delegates Friday at four congressional district conventions. The final 13 are elected at the state GOP convention Saturday. As our Ian Tuttle notes, whatever you think of Cruz as a potential president, he's looking pretty good as a manager, team-builder, and strategist: To this must be added the fact that the Cruz campaign managed to adapt its strategy mid-race after Trump's surprise victories in the South earlier in the primary season -- states that, with their large numbers of Evangelicals, were supposed to be Cruz strongholds. The Cruz campaign didn't flail; it pivoted, successfully shifting its firewall to the Midwest and the Mountain West. Now, after a resounding victory in Wisconsin, Cruz is within reach of shutting out Trump in Indiana and Nebraska. If he can win a few pockets of delegates along the way, Trump will be kept under the 1,237 threshold. Two more different campaigns would be difficult to find. Cruz seems to have surrounded himself with knowledgeable, capable professionals operating quietly but confidently behind the scenes to win him the election. Trump's campaign, by contrast, seems to be a whirlwind of incompetence and egotism that has not flown apart only because of the centripetal force of the personality at its center. And there is no reason to believe that Trump's campaign will continue to be anything but chaotic, fractious, and inept. One big question for Republicans is what lesson they take from Obama's victories. Some may have tried to emulate Obama's previous status as a blank slate that voters could project their preferences onto; others may have wanted to mimic that soaring oratory. Ted Cruz looked at Obama 2012 and chose to imitate the data operation: For the closing days of the Iowa campaign, Cruz's campaign had defined such pools for each of his major opponents as part of what was known internally as the Oorlog Project, named by a Cruz data scientist who searched online for "war" translated into different languages and thought the Afrikaner word looked coolest. It was just the latest way that Cruz's analytics department had tried to slice the Iowa caucus electorate in search of an advantage for its candidate. They had divided voters by faction, self-identified ideology, religious belief, personality type -- creating 150 different clusters of Iowa caucus-goers -- down to sixty Iowa Republicans its statistical models showed as likely to share Cruz's desire to end a state ban on fireworks sales. Unlike most of his opponents, Cruz has put a voter-contact specialist in charge of his operation, and it shows in nearly every aspect of the campaign he has run thus far and intends to sustain through a long primary season. Cruz, it should be noted, had no public position on Iowa's fireworks law until his analysts identified sixty votes that could potentially be swayed because of it. "People wonder about 'New York values'?" Wilson says, referring to Cruz's attack on Trump for once holding liberal views towards abortion and gay marriage. "That wasn't made in a vacuum." Taking a stance on an obscure issue that most candidates ignore in order to win 60 votes? Beautiful. I feel like I'm watching Tiger Woods sink a long putt. Of course, now Cruz's "New York values" comment is going to hurt him in the New York primary . . . ADDENDA: A busy week for the pop-culture podcast: Mickey and I look at the conclusion of one of the year's most intriguing television surprises, The People vs. O.J. Simpson; the legacy of American Idol, Simon Cowell's one-man war on participation-trophy culture, and how the law of diminishing returns applies to competition shows; the Viceland network show Weediquette, examining the cultural and economic ramifications of marijuana legalization; and how director Zach Snyder took some daring risks in Batman vs. Superman -- that ultimately didn't pay off, but are worth saluting nonetheless. (Question one: In the film world of the DC Comics universe, why do none of the light bulbs work well? Why are so many scenes so poorly lit?) Right now, advance review copies of two thrillers are sitting on my desk, leaving me itching to find the time to finish them. The first is Scott McEwan's Ghost Sniper, about a global hunt to find a mercenary sniper doing ruthless dirty work for Mexican drug cartels. McEwan is the coauthor of Chris Kyle's autobiography, American Sniper, and the author of Eyes on Target, a nonfiction study of the Navy SEALs. The second is Warning Order, by Joshua Hood, featuring a race to prevent a devastating terror plot targeting U.S. forces in the Middle East when they least expect it. (Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the real-life leader of ISIS, makes an appearance.) Hood spent five years in the 82nd Airborne Division, leading a parachute regiment and serving in combat operations in Iraq in 2005–2006 and in Afghanistan in 2007–2008. Hood's currently a member of the SWAT team in Memphis, Tennessee.  | 
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