SAM STEIN questions campaign gurus for Bush, Cruz and Rubio. And do they ever have stories to tell!

[misterhighwasted]

http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/sad/

Interesting interview.

SNIP

Sad!
These three campaign gurus for Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio
have had some time to reflect on their loss to The Donald. And do they ever have stories to tell.

Interview By Sam Stein Photos By Matt Roth

It's been roughly 40 days since Donald Trump became the presumptive presidential nominee of the Republican Party, and the mere fact of it hasn't come to feel any less weird, or any less scary.
It also means that the three people I had coffee and pastries with last Wednesday morning—Danny Diaz (Jeb Bush's campaign manager), Jeff Roe (Ted Cruz's campaign manager) and Alex Conant (Marco Rubio's communications director)—have been able to process what the hell happened.

Well-compensated, highly intelligent and very publicly defeated, each one of them is still angry, both at Trump and at the media.
Each one of them has theories about how we got to this very disconcerting place in American political history. And not one of them is prepared to vote for Trump.

The stories they told me over a 90-minute conversation at a bar called Black Jack in Washington DC provided an entirely different view of the campaign and of elite Republican thinking.
They spoke with unusual candor about which strategies they pushed that they now regret, how they believe network executives conspired against their candidates, what a disaster the Republican convention will be and why a Hillary Clinton blowout may be upon us.
This is what it’s like to lose to Donald Trump.

SNIP

"The media would be wise to come out and tell the truth, which is: We make business decisions, and the reality is that this guy sells magazines and ads" ~ Danny Diaz


"
On the flip side, who do you not want Hillary Clinton to pick as her VP?"

Diaz

"Elizabeth Warren."

"You think Elizabeth Warren would be problematic for the Republican ticket?"

Diaz

"I, Danny Diaz, would not want see Elizabeth Warren as vice president of the United States of America. It would be an incredibly liberal ticket, and a ticket that would be incredibly damaging to America’s economy."

Roe
"Tim Kaine"

Conant
"Bob Gates"

MUCH MORE...

Interesting & candid interview, great line of questions by Stein as to just how the Republican primary ended up with Trump, and what about Hillary.