re: #188 wheat-dogghazi-mailgate

Is it me, or does Trump fly back and forth between eastern and western states willy-nilly, without regard for trip planning? Does Clinton do the same thing? I swear he was in Colorado not long ago.

Don’t feel so bad. A lot of GOP consultants can’t figure it out, either.

Rather than focusing their efforts on must-win battleground states, Trump and his running mate Mike Pence have crisscrossed the country in a frantic last-minute dash that this week include a rally in Colorado, where Hillary Clinton has a sizable lead, and a stop for a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Republican nominee’s Washington, D.C. hotel.

“With limited time and limited resources, you can’t try to do everything,” GOP strategist Matt Mackowiak told TPM. “You have to make difficult strategic decisions and I just don’t see them doing that. I see them deploying time and resources based on his instincts, not based on data.”

Mackowiak sees the Trump campaign’s haphazard approach, which he said may bean effort to “preserve a couple of different paths to 270,” as woefully misguided. The Potomac Strategy Group founder said the Republican nominee should be spending every day until Nov. 8 in must-win states like Ohio, Florida and North Carolina.

“You get pressure,” Mackowiak acknowledged. “You have pressure from Republicans in other states who say, ‘No you can win,’ down-ballot candidates saying, ‘Come, we need you,’ people you’ve met along the way. At the end of the day though this is all about winning 270 electoral votes. It’s not about feelings and instincts and what states you like.”

Trump has defiantly brushed away questions about the strategy behind his campaign schedule in the run-up to Election Day. In a terse interview with CNN Wednesday after he attended the grand opening of the Trump International Hotel in D.C., he said it was “very important” to him to support the work of his children.

Trump is now driving the bus, as it were. He keeps going back to where the crowds like him.