2016 June 21^st

At the insistence of Trump’s family, Cory Lewandowski was given the boot, fired that is. He was escorted out of his office in Trump Tower by security guards just like a TV reporter might have been. (Oh, the shame of it all!) Cory’s failure had once been his principle strength; he insisted on letting Trump be Trump. That had worked just fine in the primaries where Trump had demolished a series of lightweight challengers.  Then things had changed, but Trump’s campaign hadn’t. The result was that Trump’s poll numbers began to sag. Where he had been ahead of Hillary Clinton, he was now either tied, or he was behind her. Moreover Lewandowski, while popular with his boss (and that was both necessary and sufficient), was wildly unpopular with the other inmates and particularly unpopular with Ivanka Trump, the boss’s daughter.

(The scuttlebutt was that Cory had never been a hit with Ivanka, but when he grabbed a woman reporter’s arm to yank her away from his boss, he really upset Ivanka and he was a goner.)

Lewandowski was interviewed on morning TV shows to get his side of the story. Not surprisingly, Cory wasn’t at all upset by getting the bum’s rush he got out of his office and out of the building. Apparently he was given no notice that he was about to be fired. Cory had nothing but nice things to say about his former employer. His abrupt removal from the building was just the way such things were done. It is very likely that Cory had signed a non-disclosure agreement that prohibited him from commenting on the inner workings of the Trump campaign.  As Cory had been a long time Trump favorite it is likely that he receives a very generous separation package, likely paid out over time. Would he jeopardize that?  Hardly.

Then there is always the possibility of re-employment by the Trump organization in some capacity or other. Trump has been known to change his mind about people. He was very unkind to Dr. Carson and to Governor Christie and now he seems to love them dearly. Maybe Cory can look forward to being a greater at Mar-a-Lago if he plays nice.

Now what? Now things are in the hands of Paul Manafort, the fixer of campaigns gone awry. Manafort has a long and very unsavory history of serving dictators who need to clean up their image. His premier client, who was rumored to have paid him nearly a million a year was Fernando Marcos of Philippine fame. Marcos was in deep trouble and was eventually thrown out of his country and Manafort was very helpful getting him safely relocated. Although when he hit Hawaii the customs boys there were not nice to him and Manafort was no help at all. Manafort was also on the payrolls of some legitimate politicians, Ronald Reagan for one.

Manafort is going to keep Trump on message and away from his love of spontaneous remarks that produce applause. Oh Come now! Trump has already come to some grief with his talk to a religious group in which he had to comment on Clinton’s religious beliefs and he blew that one.

 Poor Manafort; how long will he last?