On Wednesday night, President Trump revealed that campaign manager Brad Parscale (pictured above) would be replaced by Bill Stepien [1], who had served as deputy campaign manager.
“I am pleased to announce that Bill Stepien has been promoted to the role of Trump Campaign Manager. Brad Parscale, who has been with me for a very long time and has led our tremendous digital and data strategies, will remain in that role, while being a Senior Adviser to the campaign.” He added that both Parscale and Stepien “were heavily involved in our historic 2016 win, and I look forward to having a big and very important second win together. This one should be a lot easier as our poll numbers are rising fast, the economy is getting better, vaccines and therapeutics will soon be on the way, and Americans want safe streets and communities!”
I am pleased to announce that Bill Stepien has been promoted to the role of Trump Campaign Manager. Brad Parscale, who has been with me for a very long time and has led our tremendous digital and data strategies, will remain in that role, while being a Senior Advisor to the…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 16, 2020 [2]
The DC rumor mill says that Parscale was demoted, not fired, for three reasons. First, the recent rally fiasco in Tulsa. Second, the president’s dropping poll numbers. Third, Parscale may be involved in a romantic relationship with White House staffer Hope Hicks. Parscale is married. The poll number rumor is wrong because all and sundry know it’s too early to pay any attention to any poll and publicly released polls are only for public consumption. No one in DC takes them seriously.
After almost 20 years as a political operative myself, and having run scores of campaigns, I can tell you that any of the issues above can get you sacked, especially by a man like the president who loves personal contact with voters and was likely not amused at the campaign underperformance at that last rally.
Parscale got demoted for other reasons as well. He was getting a lot of press (like the Hicks rumor) and the president, like any candidate, does not appreciate attention being paid to a staffer and not to themselves. President Trump is very sensitive on this subject and others have been bounced for just this reason.
But the actual main rationale behind the demotion is a good one: strategy. One of the biggest mistakes of the Clinton 2016 campaign was putting a digital type, not an operative, in charge of the whole effort. Digital masters tend to be good analysts of certain factors, but as most of them have the social graces and feel for human nature generally associated with the lower orders of amphibians, they don’t have the gut level intuitive chops to run a campaign, much less command actual operatives who staff a campaign.
“Brad is the best in the business when it comes to data, but he’s not a political operative,” one Trump staffer elucidated. “Stepien is one of the best political operatives in the country and innately understands data and field and its integration and how to use that to move votes.”
Parscale, who ran Trump’s digital ops in 2016 and was promoted to command for the 2020 race, will shift back to his former role. Smart move. Running a presidential race is the work of a pro, not a slide rule jock.
The new commander, Bill Stepien is said to be good. “Bill’s MO is to keep under the radar and keep his head down and stay focused on the job. So if anything, all the attention he’s gotten probably makes him a little uncomfortable,” a GOP gunslinger said. “He knows his role is to be the guy behind the guy.”
And before people start worrying that this shake-up is unprecedented and thus troublesome, Trump had three campaign managers in 2016. Corey Lewandowski led from the beginning but was removed ahead of the convention. Paul Manafort took the helm at the convention and the lovely and sharp Kellyanne Conway led the effort right through the general election to Trump’s spectacular upset victory.
This piece was written by David Kamioner on July 16, 2020. It originally appeared in LifeZette [3] and is used by permission.
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