Start United States USA — Political Before trying to sneak a ringer on the ballot, Trump should have...

Before trying to sneak a ringer on the ballot, Trump should have consulted with a few Chicago political operatives

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Don’t make it obvious, Mr. Trump. Make reporters work to establish Kanye West’s ties to your campaign.
President Trump could avoid embarrassing himself further if he’d just hire a few seasoned Chicago political operatives to teach him the subtleties of running a phony candidate — a “ringer” — to take votes from a real election opponent. Rule #1: Don’t send your own campaign lawyer, Lane Ruhland, to file signatures for the ringer, Kanye West, as a third-party candidate for president in Wisconsin. That makes it too obvious you’re running the Grammy-winning rapper to siphon African-American votes from Joe Biden in a desperate attempt to save your cheddar there. Rule #2: Don’t send Ivanka and Jared Kushner to meet with West in Colorado as he’s filing to get on the ballot there to cut into Biden’s mile-high lead over you. Send a low-level emissary. And tell West not to tweet about the meeting afterward. Make reporters work to establish West’s ties to your campaign. America’s Dairyland boasts 15,000 lawyers. Find one that has not represented your campaign. And send a non-relative to Colorado. When I used to cover campaigns as the Chicago Sun-Times’ political reporter, I was often impressed by the skill with which political operatives convinced the patsies they were legitimate candidates. The earnestness of one congressional candidate, a boxer being helped by family friends of the incumbent, made it hard for me to report that he was a ringer, though he had the same first name and a similar last name as the apparent real challenger, a former gang crimes prosecutor. The ringer ended up coming in second, ahead of the supposedly real challenger, so who’s to say? Mission accomplished though: The incumbent won re-election. I had an easier time writing stories about the ringers who took no calls, lived in their mother’s basements and did not even put up a lawn sign in their own front yards.

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