A reminder of why Paul Manafort was Trump’s campaign manager
1. Trump needed someone with convention experience. Ted Cruz’s people were laying out a convention strategy for stealing the election from Trump, and Corey Lewandowski was out of his league. Paul Manafort was one of the few people with expertise in this area who weren’t already working for another candidate. Manafort was involved in the contested Republican convention of 1976 where he worked as a delegate manager for Ford when he was 27 years old, and he was Bob Dole’s convention manager in 1996.
2. Trump, despite being a billionaire and having mansions all over the place, is a big cheapskate when it comes to paying people. We see that with Trump’s blackmail payments to Stormi Daniels. If he had just paid with his own money up front, then there wouldn’t have been an alleged campaign finance violation. Manafort offered to work for free, and that was a salary request that Trump found too good to pass up.
3. Trump fired Manafort after the convention was over, when his particular area expertise was no longer needed, and news stories were bubbling up about the various people and organizations that he had previously worked for which cast him in a bad light.
* * *
Trump did a pretty good job of hiring campaign managers.
In the early phase of his campaign, when he needed grassroots organizing, Corey Lewandowski excelled at that.
Then during the convention phase of the campaign, Manafort was the right person. With 20/20 hindsight people can say he shouldn’t have been hired, but he was the right person for the job at the time, and if hadn’t been hired, Mueller surely would have found some other fall guy. Assuming that without Manafort Trump wouldn’t have had the nomination stolen by Cruz, making speculation about what Mueller would have done moot.
In the final phase of his campaign, Trump needed a media expert, and that was Steve Bannon.
Lion of the Blogosphere 
I imagine one reason why Trump is a successful businessman is his being a cheapskate: not “despite” but because. It’s hard to foresee when a winning strategy suddenly becomes the opposite – could anyone have foreseen the events of the past two years? I doubt it. Lion has the benefit of hindsight.
lioncub
March 8, 2019 at 11:16 AM
Trump Organization tends to hire underrated vendors that are good but charge low fees because they aren’t as established. Trump himself hires ambitious women because they work more for less.
Jimi
March 8, 2019 at 5:40 PM
Trump is a disappointment. He could put an end to all of this today if he chose. He could fire Mueller and all of the other corrupt leadership at the DOJ plus the Southern District of New York and DC, but he doesn’t. I don’t know why he lets all of this stuff go on but it must be of benefit to him. If other people have their lives ruined because of their association with him then, oh well. I completely understand why Cohen wants to bad mouth and destroy Trump. I would do the same thing if I were him.
Another thought. Decay breeds more decay and is therefore described by an exponential function. We are going to see things get worse faster.
Clay
March 8, 2019 at 1:34 PM
Do I need to keep posting Trump’s achievements? Check out my comments in this thread if you want detailed answers. https://lionoftheblogosphere.wordpress.com/2018/12/27/trump-as-mr-magoo/
The short answer is Trump is winning and moving forward on all fronts. There is a new attorney general in place one who will bring the Department of Justice under control and bring a swift end to Mueller.
The president is the boss of the White House, Pentagon, CIA, Department of Justice, State Department, and all the other major US executive branch agencies which represent empires in their own right. Plus the president represents the United States internationally. The presidency is the prize desired by all and we have it be more grateful. Trump has a lot more on his plate than some disloyal, lying, attorney.
redarmyvodka
March 9, 2019 at 1:08 AM
On the last day Manafort was campaign chairman he and his aid Rick Gates met for a dinner in a private cigar room in NYC with Konstantin Kilimnik, a Ukrainian believed to work with Russian Intelligence. At this meeting Manafort and Gates gave Kilimnik public polling data and all the private detailed polling data that the Trump campaign had. It is believed that Kilimnik passed this data to Russian Intelligence and this data was one of the things the Russian social media disinformation campaign used to target its messaging.
It is unclear if the Trump campaign even knew about this. To me it seems likely Manafort did this on his own and he was expecting to get a few million dollars in debt forgiveness from some Russian Oligarchs that he owed money.
MikeCA
March 8, 2019 at 1:42 PM
He couldn’t have won without Manafort or someone like him. He knew how to round up state delegates and most new candidates are clueless about that. D
Really, most candidates know how to run their mouths about The Big Picture on Fox but know nothing about state or local politics.
Mrs Stitch
March 8, 2019 at 5:07 PM
Your last paragraph is a non-sequitur. How is private American election poll data worth millions to any Russian citizen? Manafort is lying and anyone who buys his BS scenrio is an imbecile.
hard9bfcp
March 8, 2019 at 6:04 PM
Manafort was working for Trump for free. Manafort never did anything for free in his life. He was deeply in debt to Russian Oligarchs because of a failed business venture. I don’t think he actually got the millions of dollars from his Russian Oligarchs but Manafort did apparently tell his accountant to expect the payment.
MikeCA
March 8, 2019 at 10:09 PM
“Manafort never did anything for free in his life.”
He worked for Trump for free.
No doubt that he expected that if he got lucky and Trump became President, that would set him up to make a lot of money as a lobbyist. But that’s not Trump doing anything wrong.
Lion of the Blogosphere
March 8, 2019 at 11:58 PM
Manafort is a hero because he believed in MAGA and aided Trump in his time of need. This malicious, politically motivated, witch hunt will be brought to an end soon and the president will pardon Manafort.
redarmyvodka
March 9, 2019 at 1:11 AM
I appreciate the implicit exoneration of Trump in noting the likely rogue nature of the Manafort info dump. But there are still two problems with the story: (1) it’s legally irrelevant whether the recipient had some unofficial connection with “Russian Intelligence,” whether or not such was known to Manafort, and (2) if the Russians had any interest in propagandizing against Hillary, they sure as heck didn’t need any polling data from Manafort in irder to do it – the proper recipients would have been well within the existing kniwledge base of “RI.”
Vipltd
March 8, 2019 at 6:44 PM
Manafort was at the June 9th Trump tower meeting with the Russian lawyer offering dirt on Hillary in return for lifting sanctions. We really don’t know very well what happened at that meeting because the people who attended have told multiple lies about the meeting.
We do Know that on June 14th Rob Goldstone, the music publicist who helped setup and attended the June 9 meeting, emailed Emin Agalarov, the singer son of a the Russian oligarch Aras Agalarov, that the release of the DNC emails “…seems eerily weird based on our Trump meeting last week with the Russian lawyers etc.” This suggests that more was discussed at this meeting than has been previously admitted.
It is not clear whether this info dump helped the Russians or not, but some experts have said that the Russian social media disinformation campaign appeared to be very well targeted, and suggested that the Russians had help doing that. Manafort was desperate for money and he clearly thought it was valuable information.
MikeCA
March 8, 2019 at 10:37 PM
Who will lead his 2020 team, I wonder?
Issac
March 8, 2019 at 2:13 PM
O/t – Maybe this is of interest to you. A new book just came out from Harvard University Press about poor proles and NAMs who don’t thrive at the Ivies — essentially knocking out your vision that avoiding your inferiors and associating with the superiors, rubs you in a good way, not!
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674976894
These Ivy schools do a terrible job at integrating poor students with the wealthy ones. But this is human nature. Rich people don’t “really” want to befriend their fellow paupers.
Perhaps Yakov is right.
Know your standing in society and be happy!
Ok, what, who's this again?
March 8, 2019 at 5:13 PM
As Yakov might reply:
“Mate, get yourself an HVAC certificate and work independently. Marry yourself a nice Jewish girl and have some babies. They’ll carry on your legacy after you’re gone. Study Talmud and Torah on your free time. Don’t worry so much about status. I’ve done all of this. That’s why I’m well-off, have a lot of grandkids to enjoy and can look forward to retirement.”
Maryk (the g-loaded guidette)
March 9, 2019 at 1:14 AM
Wow that’s a dead ringer. Hey…maybe you’ve been Yakov the whole time!
Lion, check her IP!
Mike Street Station
March 9, 2019 at 7:15 AM
Yakov and MaryK are not the same person.
Lion of the Blogosphere
March 9, 2019 at 7:30 AM
“Wow that’s a dead ringer. Hey…maybe you’ve been Yakov the whole time!”
Mike, I assume you were joking! I’m good at doing impersonations both in person and online. On other websites I’ve had people tell me that my impersonations are so spot-on and funny that they had to get up and leave the room because they were laughing so hard. Of course, not everyone can be impersonated easily. You would be difficult to impersonate because you don’t repeat the same themes endlessly. like say, JS or Jesse. Someone like Gothamette could be done but it would take a lot of work. I myself should be easy to impersonate because I whine a lot about the same things.
Maryk (the g-loaded guidette)
March 9, 2019 at 10:47 AM
I know of a Hispanic, Puerto Rican who grew up in the housing projects in NYC and got the chance to attend both Harvard and Yale, only to feel better about schooling after enrolling in a graduate program with CUNY.
The top Ivies are full of arrogant, smug and elitist types. It really takes a certain personality from a lower pecking order to be able to go along with the program.
Ok, what, who's this again?
March 9, 2019 at 6:50 PM
Can someone explain what Manifort was convicted of doing? My understanding is he got a mortgage for a second home but instead of family living there, he rented it out on Airbnb. And he didn’t mention an existing mortgage when he got another one. If that’s all this is, 4 years seems pretty harsh. I can’t imagine how many people own “second homes” in vacation spots but really just rent them out.
Steverino@steverino.com
March 8, 2019 at 7:28 PM
In country with a hundred thousand laws everyone is a criminal. That’s on purpose so the powers that be can come after you when they want while giving their friends, associates, and related businesses exemptions. The special counsel shouldn’t even exist because the law associated with it correctly expired in the late 1990s. Special counsels are a violation of the separation of powers, have all sorts of perverse incentives, and engage in massive abuses of power.
redarmyvodka
March 9, 2019 at 1:16 AM
I don’t know the details of Manafort’s case, but in the UK the anti-Islam activist Tommy Robinson has been targeted by the police and intelligence services (both directed by government) for over a decade. He was sent to prison for mortgage fraud, even though he didn’t commit an offence. (I won’t go into details as to how.) The history of Tommy Robinson has unearthed a police state in the UK. I don’t suppose the US is any different. As I think Lion has said himself, if the establishment wants to destroy someone, they can do that just as easily in the so-called “free world” as they can in China or Russia. No-one is safe if they try to undermine the establishment.
lioncub
March 9, 2019 at 3:21 AM