Trump hires Iowan with knack for shoestring campaigns
Donald Trump has hired Iowa conservative Chuck Laudner to run his Iowa campaign if the New Yorker decides to run for president.
This will be a different world for Laudner, a 30-year operative who has a knack for running campaigns with almost no money and staff.
Last presidential election cycle, Laudner's candidate was a little-known former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania who at times struggled to attract an audience of five people. Working on a shoestring budget, Laudner used his own pickup truck to ferry Rick Santorum to Iowa's 99 counties, sometimes multiple times. Their endless campaigning paid off when Santorum caught fire right at the end and claimed enough support to win the 2012 Iowa caucuses by an eyelash.
Trump, because of his work in real estate development and his stardom on reality TV, is a billionaire with worldwide fame. He intends to self-fund his White House bid, if he runs.
This time, could Laudner move up from the Chuck Truck to a Chuck Chopper?
"Maybe a Sikorsky S-76? That's the ultimate in choppers. That's a chopper on steroids," Trump said in a telephone interview with The Des Moines Register Wednesday morning. "And a Boeing 757? We have transportation covered."
Trump interviewed four Iowans for the job, but Laudner was "my first choice, my second choice and my third choice," he said. "I've liked Chuck from day one. I think he's a great guy."
Trump's next Iowa trip is next weekend, and he's bringing his son, Donald Trump, Jr. Trump will fly in from Miami for the Iowa Agriculture Summit on March 7, but won't actually speak on stage. The World Golf Championships-Cadillac Championship is taking place the first week in March at the Trump National Doral. So Trump will give a speech at an ag summit reception Friday night, and video of his remarks will be played on Saturday to the full summit audience, organizers told the Register.
Wednesday morning, Trump said he will decide around June whether to officially run for president.
"Any one of these other candidates, all they do is run for office. It's all they know how to do. For me, it's hard to run because I'm doing monumental things," he told the Register:
Trump said he owns some of the greatest properties in the world, his company has very low debt and tremendous cash flow, and he's the author of bestselling books, including his 1987 autobiography, "The Art of the Deal,' which he said is "the most successful business book of all time."
"People may say, 'Oh, well he does 'The Apprentice.' They have no idea," he said.
Trump talked about how he rebuilt the Wollman Skating Rink in Central Park in three months after others had tried for eight years, how he was selected as the developer of the Old Post Office Building on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., how he co-owns the Bank of America building in San Francisco, "the finest office building on the West Coast," and has been involved in dozens of other major projects.
"Our country is in serious trouble. It needs competent leadership. Some like and some don't like me, but they know what I've done is an amazing thing. In the history of politics, almost no one has achieved what I have achieved in life," he said.
Breitbart.com broke the news of Laudner's hire Tuesday night.
Laudner, 49, of Rockford, is a former executive director of the Republican Party of Iowa and a Steve King confidant, with deep connections in the party's conservative and tea party factions. He said he looked at several possible candidates before he settled on Trump on Feb. 1.
"Conservatives just don't move the needle," he told the Register in a telephone interview. "We win some and we lose some, but we never move the needle. I think it's about time that maybe we go about this a different way."
Trump is a conservative who could be a draw for people who have been sitting out politics, Laudner said.
"Someone of his stature, his fame and the size of his audience? It should be our target to convince those people that we should move the political center to the right," he said. "There are more people outside that room than in it."
Laudner said the Trump organization has been refreshing. "It's not like any other political shop I've ever worked in. It's all business," he said. "Things get done in a pretty timely fashion."