Three months ago, after Donald Trump spoke at Congressman Steve King’s Iowa Freedom Summit, a columnist with the Washington Post penned an article titled, “The GOP needs Donald Trump to go away. Now.” Other journalists and political commentators have shared similar sentiments about Trump’s flirtations with a 2016 presidential campaign.

Trump’s hiring of Chuck Laudner in March to lead his efforts in Iowa indicates that there is something to all his talk of a 2016 presidential campaign. Laudner has made a career out of working for conservative causes and long-shot campaigns. A guy like Laudner has piled up more moral victories than one can count, so when it was announced that he was working for Trump, it got people’s attention.

Who a campaign hires to leads its efforts in a state like Iowa can tell you a lot about how they plan to approach the state. Even though Trump hired Laudner, it was clear that Laudner would be using a different approach than he has used in previous campaigns. Thus it will take some time to gauge how this will all work.

A little over two months into the experiment, it’s easy to see that Trump’s hiring of Laudner was more than just window dressing to suggest that he’s serious about 2016. Not only has Laudner hired three hard-working and hungry field staffers to help organize the First-in-the-Nation caucus state, but his handling of Trump in Iowa has also been spot-on.

Let’s face it, Donald Trump is never going to ride shotgun in Laudner’s 2006 Dodge Ram pickup and stop at every Pizza Ranch as they make their way county to county. Trump is a celebrity and an active businessman, which means that he has to maximize the time he spends in the state because there are other things on his schedule. So those little events with a handful of people in the backroom at the local diner are not going to be on Trump’s Iowa Itinerary.

Trump has made two swings through Iowa in the past month. Each time, Trump has spoken at college campuses. He addressed a crowd of over 500 at Simpson College in Indianola, and last week, he had a crowd of over 800 at Wartburg College in Waverly. In addition to college stops, Trump has been headlining fundraising events for Republican candidates and organizations. Trump has done events for the Polk County Republican Party, State Senator Jack Whitver, Secretary of State Paul Pate, and the Scott County GOP. In each instance, Trump has helped each draw impressive crowds.

Besides being successful, Trump’s recent trips to Iowa have also helped him get acclimated to life on the campaign trail. On both trips Trump has used his Boeing 757 to get him to Iowa and around the state. And while some may think that’s a little extravagant, it’s who he is. Nobody wants to see Donald Trump in blue jeans and polo shirt when he comes to town; they want the guy they see on TV.

Should Trump formally announce his candidacy for president, there is no doubt that his campaign is going to be very different than anything else we have seen before. Trump’s critics sincerely doubt that he will actually pull the trigger on a 2016 campaign, but after watching him spend ample time in Iowa, the only conclusion one can naturally come to is that he’s serious. Don’t forget, Trump has spent more time in Iowa this year than Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, and Chris Christie combined, and he has more trips to Iowa already scheduled.

Some may not see a path in Iowa for Trump in 2016, but he’s the political outsider/tea party candidate that will say things that other candidates will refuse to say. I was talking to a national reporter on the phone the other day, and they asked me what was going on in Iowa. As I mentioned Trump, there was laughter, but when I said all I really wanted to see was Trump on the debate stage with the other candidates, there was agreement.

As a presidential candidate, Trump himself has some work to do, but what he has going on in Iowa is interesting to say the least. Laudner might not seem like a natural fit for someone like Trump, but his work thus far proves that hiring an experienced hand in Iowa was a wise move. There are a lot of people running for president that are coming to Iowa, but only a few of them have an actual campaign that’s out there working. Surprisingly, one of those is Trump.

 Photo by Dave Davidson – Prezography.com