• by Nina Lentini , Staff Writer @Nina_Lentini, January 16, 2020

Kevin Zambrano looked nervous. Which was odd since this chief digital officer of the Republican National Committee should be sitting pretty, having known three years ago that this year's nominee would be Donald Trump.

At MediaPost's Marketing Politics conference, he was quizzed by Editorial Director Joe Mandese, left, about plans and media. 

Zambrano begins his day dealing with the news cycle. "Impeachment has changed the game," he said. It's hour by hour. We're trying to get ahead of the game. We're flying by the seat of our pants. We wake up, we see [Trump's] Twitter, we know what the day is going to look like. He is the best marketer in the business, left or right."

Okay, now I get why he's on edge.

The RNC this time around is working much more closely with cross-channel communication. It has email and SMS "going in the background. Our team, within an hour, is responding to Speaker Pelosi or Senator Schumer. If president the tweets, we can take screen shot and get a three-sentence message out."

If? He means when.

Zambrano was pleased to hear Trump announce his reelection campaign on day one. "The operation never stopped," he said. "We have 200 million [dollars] to start this new year. The DNC does not."

The week of Feb. 2 looms large for him and his people. There's the Super Bowl on that Sunday, followed by the Iowa caucus on Monday and the State of the Union speech on Tuesday. He called it a "mini fire drill for the convention. Rapid-response stuff. Fail now so we're not failing in August."