• by Philip Rosenstein , Staff Writer, April 11, 2016

Experienced lobbyist and consultant Paul Manafort has hit the headlines in recent days as Donald Trump’s new convention manager, putting Corey Lewandowski’s status within the Trump campaign into question.

The embattled Lewandowski may be sidelined by Manafort, amid a shake-up in the Trump team. As reports surface about the weakness of Trump’s delegate securing strategy, it became clear that a change was in order.

Over the weekend in Colorado, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz secured support from 21 of 37 delegates in the state. As one of the six states or territories that decided against holding a typical caucus or primary to pick a presidential nominee, Colorado holds a long, involved process of delegate selection.

To Cruz’s 21 delegates, in that state, Trump has zero, as does Ohio Gov. John Kasich. Trump’s on-the-ground organizing is so sloppy that one of the aspiring pro-Trump delegates, Charles Prignano, had his name misspelled on informational fliers. The Washington Post reported Prignano saying: “It is the most disorganized campaign I’ve ever seen.”

Paul Manafort is the man Trump hopes can energize and command a sophisticated delegate strategy moving forward.

The bar has been set high. Manafort told NBC’s Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press” that he is “confident [the Trump campaign has] several ways through June 7th to go over 1,237.” Todd explained that in order to get to that magic number, Trump will have to win 61% of remaining delegates, a difficult task in such a contentious climate.

Manafort seems a good fit for Trump, and like Lewandowski, can be expected to test the legal/ethical line.

After attacking Ted Cruz, accusing his campaign of using “Gestapo tactics,” Manafort refrained from answering a question about the ethical limits in obtaining delegates: “Well, there’s the law, and then there’s ethics. And then there’s getting votes. I’m not going to get into what tactics are used.”

As the cofounder of two lobbying firms, Manafort aroused suspicions of wrongdoing. One of his firms was investigated by a congressional panel in 1989 for its involvement in a project funded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Further, he fits the mold of deal maker, whatever the deal and whomever the client. After stints working for Presidents Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and both George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush, he vanished from public view, only to end up as an adviser to former pro-Russian Ukrainian leader Viktor Yanukovych.

Paul Manafort is somewhat of an enigma, Politico reported in 2014 that “Once-intimate colleagues [said] they [had] not seen Manafort in years and [heard] from him only in occasional email missives.”

He’s now back in the spotlight, hoping to propel his latest client: Donald Trump.