by digby
Remember when Trump explained why he didn’t do the kind of personal one-on-one campaigning that people normally do in places like Iowa and New Hampshire?
Don’t forget that when I ran in the primaries, when I was in the primaries, everyone said you can’t do that in New Hampshire, you can’t do that. You have to go and meet little groups, you have to see – cause I did big rallies, 3-4-5K people would come…and they said, wait a minute, Trump can never make it, because that’s not the way you deal with New Hampshire, you have to go to people’s living rooms, have dinner, have tea, have a good time. I think if they ever saw me sitting in their living room they’d lose total respect for me. They’d say, I’ve got Trump in my living room, this is weird.
They’d think it was just weird for Trump to show up in their living room and listen to what they have to say about their lives, right? Everyone would be uncomfortable with that.
However, it’s different for these folks, his folks:
The New York billionaire, who has cast himself as free from the influence of the party’s donor class, has spent this summer forging bonds with wealthy GOP financiers — seeking their input on how to run his campaign and recast his policies for the general election, according to more than a dozen people who have participated in the conversations.
Private meetings with top contributors turn into strategy brainstorming sessions. High-priced dinner fundraisers are transformed into impromptu focus groups.
During a July lunch at a Southampton, N.Y., estate, he spent at least an hour asking the 60 heavyweight contributors in attendance to each share their pick of who he should tap as his running mate. At a photo line with donors in Minneapolis in August, he polled whether he should continue using a teleprompter at public events.
At a mountainside chateau in Aspen last week, he quizzed locals about how the campaign could better compete in Colorado. And in a pistachio orchard outside a supporter’s home in Tulare, Calif., this week, he queried farmers about how to create a “permit” system for undocumented workers.
The episodes illustrate how Trump, who has a tiny circle of intimates, is turning to the wealthy business leaders he encounters on the fundraising circuit to serve as an ad hoc kitchen cabinet. He appointed many of his biggest financial backers to his economic advisory council, including Wisconsin billionaire Diane Hendricks, investor Tom Barrack and oil executive Harold Hamm. And there are already signs of how Trump is incorporating ideas from donors into his campaign.
How this guy became a working class hero is one of the great stories of this election. PT Barnum is laughing and laughing and laughing.