TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP BUSINESS: “The same week President Donald Trump was sworn into office, he applied for a trademark on ‘Keep America Great’ for use on buttons, banners, clothing, advertising and more, according to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and filed the paperwork to launch a re-election campaign earlier than any other president in modern history… In the past year, Mr. Trump has appealed to supporters big and small to build up a re-election war chest, held nine political rallies in states he won in 2016 and aired campaign-sponsored television commercials to promote his policy agenda. He has also embraced the political action committees and major donors he once called a scourge on governing.
Mr. Trump’s campaign and an outside group that backs him collected more than $73 million last year, according to Federal Election Commission filings and interviews with officials at America First, a part-super PAC, part-nonprofit group that routinely meets with Mr. Trump and top White House officials to discuss political strategy. The campaign’s $43 million haul is four times what President Barack Obama raised in his first two years in office, a period when he wasn’t actively fundraising.
Indeed, no president who has served under modern campaign finance laws that date back to President Jimmy Carter has held a re-election fundraiser before entering his third year in office, said Brendan Doherty, an associate professor of political science at the U.S. Naval Academy who has researched presidential campaigning. Mr. Trump had eight in his first year.”
-Julie Bykowicz, “Trump Makes Quick Work of Re-Election Fundraising,” The Wall Street Journal online, Feb. 1, 2018 02:58pm