title:  ‘No Chance He’s Going To Win’: Operative Who Elected Bush Tells All On Trump
text: Republicans who have been behind successful presidential campaigns are now speaking up on the slowly unraveling disaster that is Donald Trump s effort, and it isn t good. These long-time Republicans are now facing the very real prospect that Trump s horribly run campaign will also drag down other members of the party on the ticket and cause long-term damage which could take forever for the right to recover from.Many of them want to abandon ship.Back in 1996, the party largely gave up on nominee Bob Dole once it became clear he had little chance of winning, so it s not without precedent. Nevertheless, it s a jolting prospect now, with roughly three months still left before the Nov. 8 vote and weeks before the three presidential debates.Republicans who have devoted their professional lives to electing GOP candidates say they believe the White House already may be lost. They re exasperated by Trump s divisive politics and his insistence on running a general election campaign that mirrors his approach to the primaries. Based on his campaign record, there s no chance he s going to win,  said Sara Fagen, the political director for former President George W. Bush.  He s losing groups of people he can t get back. Fagen is no moderate squish. She was a right-wing conservative member of the 2004 George W. Bush re-election campaign, and whatever the issues were with the morality of Bush s campaign that year   Iraq, terrorism, corruption, etc.   it is impossible to argue that it wasn t a well-run and well-organized campaign that beat out Senator John Kerry s effort that year.The Wall Street Journal described her role on that campaign as a  data whiz  and said she  helped perfect political micro-targeting. That is the technique used to target campaign prospects based on their interests and likelihood to be supporters of a candidate. The Bush 2004 campaign pioneered this, and it was used in a massive way by President Obama in his overwhelmingly successful 2008 and 2012 campaigns. It s how modern elections are won   or lost.Trump has not invested in campaign basics like that, and even in states where he should be on the ground with organizers that could give him a shot at winning, he isn t doing it. Instead, he is focused on feeding his base voters red meat, filled with bigotry, which turns off the voters he needs to win.And Republicans know it, and the veterans see the likelihood of a massive wipeout coming.Featured image via Flickr