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Inside Trump’s Unique Campaign Strategy

May 6, 2016 · 8:48 am ET · 97 Comments

To get a sense of why Trump is following an unusual playbook all his own, the Washington Post spoke with longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone:

Said Stone: “Trump is going to eschew everything the establishment and the press think he should be doing to have a total grassroots communications strategy. He’ll be all over the media, doing as many interviews as he can, calling into radio shows, and having wall-to-wall rallies that get broadcast on the cable channels. Remember, those rallies also get you to dominate the local news. So you’re all over the local channels, all over the national, wall-to-wall and free.”

Stone didn’t always agree with Trump’s tactics: “I told him it couldn’t work. I was skeptical. An adviser telling someone that you could win a presidential campaign by not spending much at all on ads? By simply going on TV? It was a historic calculation. But he did it. A blunt speaking style, a repetition on three issues, and you combine that with a sour and suffering electorate and it all worked.”

2016 Campaign Donald Trump, Roger Stone

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Taegan Goddard

Taegan Goddard

Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.

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