Kellyanne Conway offered some free campaign advice to her old boss Donald Trump in a lengthy New York Times column.
The former White House adviser and 2016 campaign manager published an op-ed laying out the case for and against Trump's election next year, laced with snide attacks against President Joe Biden, and urged the former president to run again as an outsider.
"It would also be foolish to assume that Mr. Trump’s path to another presidency would be smooth and secure," Conway wrote. "This is not 2016, when he and his team had the hunger, swagger and scrappiness of an insurgent’s campaign and the 'history be damned' happy warrior resolve of an underestimated, understaffed, under-resourced effort. It’s tough to be new twice."
"Unless what’s old can be new again," she added. "Mr. Trump’s track record reminds Republican primary voters of better days not that long ago: accomplishments on the economy, energy, national security, trade deals and peace deals, the drug crisis and the southern border. He can also make a case — one that will resonate with Republicans — about the unfairness and hypocrisy of social media censorship and alleged big tech collusion, as recent and ongoing revelations show."
Conway cast the various criminal investigations and civil lawsuits Trump faces as political hit jobs, just as the ex-president does, and took what could be seen as a veiled swipe at her own husband, George Conway, who's one of the most prominent anti-Trump conservatives.
"Trump Derangement Syndrome is real," she wrote. "There is no vaccine and no booster for it. Cosseted in their social media bubbles and comforted within self-selected communities suffering from sameness, the afflicted disguise their hatred for Mr. Trump as a righteous call for justice or a solemn love of democracy and country. So desperate is the incessant cry to “get Trump!” that millions of otherwise pleasant and productive citizens have become naggingly less so."
Conway said that many voters are probably tired of the former president, who may not be able to outrun his legal problems and has been blamed for the GOP's lackluster midterm performance, but she sees a path to victory if he can somehow play a wild card that helped him win more than six years ago.
"Mr. Trump lost support among older voters, white men, white voters with a college degree, and independents, though he increased his vote share across notable demographics like Hispanics and Blacks," she wrote. "One wild card: Will the undercover, hidden 2016 Trump voter, those who wish to keep their presidential pick private from pollsters, return in 2024?"
