RNC HEADQUARTERS, TRUMP TOWER — As soon as the forced departure of Paul Manafort as Donald Trump’s campaign chairman was announced yesterday, your solitary reporter scurried around Trump Tower and found long-time political dirty trickster Roger Stone lurking in the shadows.
Emerging from the dark into the light of day, Stone met with Trump’s former campaign manager, hard-baller Corey Lewandowski, and, with the solitary reporter closely observing, the duo began plotting their next move to make America worse again.
“Kellyanne Conway is only a pollster, and she can’t cut the mustard as campaign manager,” Stone said, “and I have a lot more political savvy than she does.” Lewandowski promptly agreed.
Stone and Lewandowski were soon joined by Trump’s increasingly powerful son-in-law, Jared Kushner. After a few winks and nods, Kushner called a press conference and announced that Mr. Trump has replaced Conway with Stone.
Stone, a long-time political strategist and mischief-maker, began his career in politics when he was a junior and vice president of student government at a high school in northern Westchester County, New York. There, he manipulated the ouster of the president of the student council and succeeded him. Years later, Stone recalled how he ran for election as president of the student council for his senior year: “[I] built alliances and put all my serious challengers on my ticket. Then I recruited the most unpopular guy in the school to run against me. You think that’s mean? No, it’s smart.”
As a student at George Washington University in 1972, Stone invited Jeb Magruder, later of Watergate notoriety, to speak at a Young Republicans Club, and got Magruder to hire him to work for Richard Nixon’s extraordinarily successful Committee to Reelect the President. Stone’s political career began in earnest with activities such as contributing money to a possible rival of Nixon in the name of the “Young Socialist Alliance” – and then slipping the receipt to the Manchester Union Leader, always a reliable supporter of the political Right. Stone also got a spy hired by the Hubert Humphrey campaign who became Humphrey’s driver. According to Stone, during the day he was officially a scheduler in the Nixon campaign, but: “By night, I’m trafficking in the black arts. Nixon’s people were obsessed with intelligence.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Stone; http://www.weeklystandard.com/article/15381.
Stone’s first task as Trump’s newest campaign manager will be to “do something” to Neal Gabler, who wrote “To Trump, Even Losing Is Winning” in yesterday’s Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/20/opinion/campaign-stops/to-trump-even-losing-is-winning.html?emc=edit_th_20160820&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=64422958&_r=0). In that opinion piece, Gabler opined that Trump’s goal has always been to promote his narcissistic self, and that by losing in November, as he is sure to do, he will brilliantly succeed in attracting even more undeserved attention to himself.
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