March 18, 2016

Note to Trump Foes: Not Too Much Coordination, Please

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From the Wall Street Journal:

Pro-Democratic groups are launching an orchestrated bid to weaken GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump ahead of a potential November showdown with Hillary Clinton, while her campaign readies a strategy of engaging the billionaire businessman on issues without trading insults.

A coalition of 22 liberal groups—including some that have endorsed Mrs. Clinton and others that back her Democratic rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders—have united behind a campaign to stop Mr. Trump.

Among their plans: anti-Trump demonstrations, possibly including protests at the Republican National Convention this summer in Cleveland, and marches in major cities.

If I can play amateur strategist for a minute, I hope these groups aren’t coordinating too much. It’s nice to see everyone taking the Trump threat seriously, but my sense is that big, coordinated campaigns don’t work very well. They end up adopting strategies that everyone in the group can agree to, and those tend to be a little bland in a lowest-common-denominator sense. For the most part it’s best for everyone to do their own thing. Some of those things will work, some won’t. But at least you don’t have all your eggs in one basket.

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That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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