DES MOINES�� For five days, the royal-blue bus rumbled through miles of cornfields alongside a popular annual bicycle trek across Iowa. It showed up at a country music concert in Cherokee and at a bacon festival in Ottumwa.

And when the hulking vehicle with thick white block letters that spell TRUMP�� pulled into a Wal-Mart parking lot in Fort Dodge this week, people flocked to it. It didn'��t matter that Donald Trump wasn'��t inside. The bus alone — with the "��Make America Great Again!��" slogan extending across its sides — created an irresistible oasis of celebrity politics amid a desert of minivans and shopping carts.

"��One hundred people showing up for a staffer? I'�ve never seen anything like it,�� said Chuck Laudner, a longtime Iowa organizer who oversees Trump's efforts here. "��They kept saying the same thing: They want something different."

For many Americans, the Trump presidential campaign amounts to a billionaire talking endlessly, and entertainingly, on television. But here in Iowa, it's another story. Trump is trying to beat the politicians on their turf, building one of the most extensive organizations in the Republican field.

The groundwork laid by Trump'��s sizable Iowa staff, with 10 paid operatives and growing, is the clearest sign yet that the unconventional candidate is looking beyond his summer media surge and attempting to win February'��s first-in-the-nation caucuses.

This is becoming a cause of concern for rival campaigns.

"��I see them as a major threat to all the other campaigns because of the aggressiveness of their ground game,"�� said Sam Clovis, an Iowa conservative who leads former Texas governor Rick Perry'��s campaign.

"You cannot swing a dead cat in Iowa and not hit a Trump person," Clovis continued. "��It'�s unlike anything I've ever seen." "Every event we go to, the Boone County Eisenhower Social, the Black Hawk County Lincoln Dinner, the boots-and-barbecue down in Denison,�� the Trump people are everywhere with literature and T-shirts and signing people up.

"The Trump bus will pull into an empty parking lot and just be there on the main drag, like the little town of Le Mars, the Ice Cream Capital of the World.��" "People will pull over, go sign up. They'��ll get 50 people in an hour and go to another town. That happens all over the state."

Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad (R), in an interview Thursday, said of Trump: "��I think he'��s got a real campaign here. Whether he's willing to devote the time to go to as many places as some of the other candidates are going is the question."

Backers of former congressman Ron Paul's presidential campaigns, which were well organized in Iowa, see Trump appealing to Paul'��s base here despite the competing candidacy of Paul's son Rand, Kentucky’s junior U.S. senator.

"��He'��s catching on with the average Americans who have had it with foreign wars, our trade policies and a stalled economy,"�� said Drew Ivers, Ron Paul's 2012 Iowa campaign chairman.

Trump'��s colorful assault on the political establishment and strident opposition to illegal immigration has propelled his candidacy to the lead here and nationally. A CNN-ORC poll on Wednesday showed him in first place in Iowa with 22 percent, followed by retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson in second with 14 percent. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who is counting on the caucuses, fell to third at 9 percent.

Trump will make a theatrical return to Iowa on Saturday. He plans to touch down in Des Moines by private helicopter, landing in a field just outside the Iowa State Fairgrounds, and then visit the famed butter cow, according to Republicans familiar with the campaign. He also plans to huddle with activists.

Candidates traditionally give a speech and take questions at the fair'��s Des Moines Register Soapbox, but Trump is not planning to do so. He is in a feud with the Register; after the newspaper’s editorial board called on him to withdraw, Trump slammed the newspaper and began barring its reporters from his events.

Other candidates are building solid networks here as well. Former Florida governor Jeb Bush, whose Iowa operation has nine paid staffers, announced campaign chairs in 22 of Iowa's 99 counties on Wednesday, with more to come. Walker, who has four staffers and two consultants here, unveiled a 65-member Iowa leadership team last week that includes lawmakers, mayors, sheriffs, county treasurers and party stalwarts.

But Trump is taking a different approach. His state director is Laudner, a highly regarded grass-roots tactician and confidant of Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), who is a powerful force on the hard right. This time four years ago, Laudner drove Rick Santorum around the state in his pickup truck, guiding the former senator from Pennsylvania to a come-from-behind victory in the 2012 caucuses.

"I've told people from the beginning: Never underestimate Donald Trump," said Bob Vander Plaats, president of the Family Leader, an influential social-conservative group here. "��He has been very successful for a reason. He knows how to market, and specifically he knows how to market himself, very well. He also understands what the customer wants."

Trump is trying to defy conventional wisdom about the caucuses by creating a broad coalition.

But others on the Trump team are experienced political hands. Co-chair Richard Thornton is a lawyer plugged into state legislative politics, and deputy state director Chris Hupke is a former head of the South Dakota Family Policy Council known for his field organizing. Another top aide is Ryan Keller, who ran congressional campaigns and the Republican Party in Polk County, Iowa’s largest.

Trump has made only occasional campaign stops in Iowa, and he eschews the small retail appearances that other candidates make.

Making up for his absence is the “TRUMP”-emblazoned bus. The campaign advertises on the Web when the bus will be in a town. Residents turn out to get Trump yard signs, Trump pins and Trump T-shirts. More important, they leave their names and contact information and take home kits explaining how to become caucus captains in their precincts, distribute bumper stickers and write letters to the editors of local papers.

Political organizing in Iowa requires sophistication because of the state’s unique system. Voters gather at a designated time with their neighbors and advocate for their preferred candidates before ballots are cast.

Turnout in Iowa caucuses is historically low. In 2012, only 121,000 of the state’s roughly 600,000 registered Republican voters participated. In 2016, strategists expect turnout to increase to 140,000 or higher.

The Trump campaign is targeting voters who may not have participated in a caucus before, modeling its strategy on Barack Obama’s 2008 Iowa campaign, which mobilized tens of thousands of new caucus-goers.

"We'��re reaching people that the Republican apparatus doesn’t even know exist,"�� Laudner said. "��The other day, one woman came up to say, "Hello, a lifelong Iowan." Her first question to us was "What'��s a caucus?" After we told her, she wanted to help." "Politics has not been the biggest thing in a lot of these people'��s lives. They'��ve got lots of stuff going on with their jobs or families. But they feel Donald Trump is what this country needs."

Carson also is trying to use his political-outsider status to attract new voters into his camp. The challenge for both candidates will be getting people to show up on a cold night in February.

"��It'��s these nontraditional candidates, Carson and Trump, who are going out there really trying to bring new people into the process, said Craig Robinson, editor in chief of the Iowa Republican. "��If motivated, sure these people will caucus."

On a Saturday in late July, Trump swept into Oskaloosa, a town of about 11,000, where he addressed an overflow crowd at the local high school as his bus sat parked outside. Wearing a ­salmon-pink tie and dark suit, he gushed about the state.

"��Whoa! Beautiful, beautiful," Trump said. "��It'��s a terrific place, Iowa. Terrific! We just got in, and I'��m driving through these beautiful fields. I want to grab that corn like you'��ve never seen. So rich, so beautiful."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/an-iowa-surprise-donald-trump-is-actually-trying-to-win/2015/08/13/564a9f50-4142-11e5-8e7d-9c033e6745d8_story.html

He's even attracting the Paultards when then loon's own son is running!

And who was it last election that was ahead of everyone? Oh yes.... the gooey fecal matter after sex between males.... Santorum

This yoyo is gonna go up and down more this election cycle than any before because of a larger block of registered independents and people upset with both parties.

The 2 party system is in it's death throws and nodody trusts their media anymore either.

The circus is in town and the clowns aren't the favorite attraction any more

# 7 th Donald Trump thread

Oddly, the demise of the American political system seems invisible to the participants. Trump is a wake-up call that the Republicans elected so far mostly don't reflect Republican values. Both parties are just whores to the money that controls them. Voters don't count and Trump is the symptom of the disease.

Donald Trump simply represents the culmination of the disdain people have for decades of badly managed nationhood.

You can try to demean his candidacy all you want, and drag out the 'crazy' 'chauvinist' 'war on women' cliches all you want. The reality is that the WORLD at one time thought America was to be respected and feared for the riches it could offer its friends, and for the damage it could inflict upon its enemies.

The key was how you chose to apply the riches, and invoke the damages. These were not wisely administered, nor sparingly applied since the 70's. We tried to ingratiate ourselves to friends with untold contracts, industrial expansions, and thinly veiled levels of corruption and bribery. It also seemed that the secrecy required to administer these programs effectively dissolved upon reaching the headlines of the daily paper when those claiming altruistic intentions laid open the machinations of true power politics that no one really wanted to see.

Wars, both small and large were largely unfocused in application, and lacked the public approval so often needed to ride out the bad days of any conflict when young men and women die. We bombed people with the same mentality we use when trying to end the life of an insect. Too often the wrong tool is used, and we waive helplessly as our target ducks and dives our half hearted attempts to end their buzzing annoyances. The wars we executed badly just weren't the military kind. It's been 50 years of the war on poverty, drugs, illiteracy, teenage pregnancy, substandard housing, pollution, and yes, both racism and sexism.

Trump simply is the personification of the question "So, how's that been workin' out for ya?"

Trump is the idealistic guy who believes illegal aliens are bad. Period. They broke the law coming here. Send em' back. Very black and white.

War? You only go when you can win, AND you fight it like you WANT to win first, and not just create a stalemate for the locals to deal with. Think about it for a moment. Since WW II, SEVENTY years ago, how many times has the U.S. gone to war with a country that formally surrendered at the end of the conflict, admitting it was defeated, and didn't become violent again soon after?

Social programs? The 'war' on everything? Trump's position seems to be, we've spend hundreds of billions on people willing to sit home and cash the checks. Enough. Create jobs. Ones that offer people a living wage and self esteem. You WILL take the jobs you CAN do, and if you don't have a good reason for not taking one, you lose your benefits.

Sexism, racism? Does Donald want to live back in the 50's? I don't think so. Personally I think he wants to emulate the 60's. Why? America invented things, went to space, owned technology and harnessed it for things like entertainment and art. Women made political, social,economic and sexual empowerment advances. Racism was discussed, examined under the socio-economic microscope, and it's reprehensible nature was codified in laws of equality.

I think like many people Trump believes the reality of western societies never came close to matching the dreams people had for it. Maybe like the rest of us, he just wants his American made atomic car and atomic house that magazines told us would be the norm.

Trump is a businessman. That is his fiber. His businesses are a dictatorship. He would expect a parade after every victory and he would hide every failure.

Right now he is a novelty, like the funny guy at the Bar B Que. You listen to his stories and laugh at his frankness. You find it refreshing as long as he is not talking about you.

He speaks his mind (which I respect), but he is also a loose cannon, who can not get out of his own way.

And at the end of the day Trump has always had one entity in mind.. and one entity only.. himself.

For that reason alone, I would never vote for him.

Trump recently stated that he would soon release detailed plans to solve certain issues....i.e., illegal immigration, beating China in trade, "making America great again". Pls link me some of these details. The Trump for president website was no help....it was mainly full of press releases and a "donate" button, as you can see:

https://www.donaldjtrump.com/

TIA

Donald Trump simply represents the culmination of the disdain people have for decades of badly managed nationhood.

You can try to demean his candidacy all you want, and drag out the 'crazy' 'chauvinist' 'war on women' cliches all you want. The reality is that the WORLD at one time thought America was to be respected and feared for the riches it could offer its friends, and for the damage it could inflict upon its enemies.


Oh yea..it is this ^^^^^^

maybe the mods are sleep? lol

do people really believe this man will give up his financial prowess and control over his family's brand for a mere 250 grand a year?

God help us if he does, the motives wont be what people wish to believe they are,,,

When you have 9 billion dollars, the salary likely won't even cover your dry cleaning.

Political life was originally a philanthropic venture as only the rich could afford it as a vocation. Using family fortunes to sustain them, being a politician originally didn't even merit a salary. Of course we became 'enlightened' as to how unfair this all was, and ANYONE should be able to enter politics, and how they should be paid a wage for doing the job, etc.

Trump if he's in it for the money, will have accumulated quite the awesome Rolodex by the time his first term ends. He in theory would have access to dealmakers all over the world that he doesn't have access to now. I don't think we'll need a telethon for Donald when he leaves the WH.

Leaving the business empire in the hands of his kids, or appointed executives would not be a bad thing. He son is said to be business savvy, and his daughter has brain cells to spare, and I'm sure would be more than capable to handle the family business.

Being without real political experience didn't stop Obama, and he already had a decent sized bank account when he got to the WH, so why should the salary stop Trump from serving the country?

Man you Trump haters will whine about anything. lol

I dont care what his kids are said to have

I dont believe his NARCISSISM will ever allow anyone else to reign over his brand


too much can happen in four years that he isnt allowed to be involved,,,,and then what will he return to?

Free toupee for one lucky Iowan!!!

Just how much dirt lies under THAT rug?

I dunno but people are jumping off the Rand and Ron Paul bandwagon and getting behind trump. Rand lost two major endorsements that went to Trump after they already endorsed Paul.

This is something I have not seen in an election in my lifetime. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.