So, that happened. In February 2013, The New York Times Magazine published a 2012 election postmortem titled, "Can The Republicans Be Saved From Obsolescence ." The author, Robert Draper, profiled several innovative Republican strategists who'd all been left on the sidelines as Republican candidate Mitt Romney went down to defeat. The upshot: All that talent could have made a big difference in the GOP's fortunes.

Flash forward to today, and the new GOP presumptive nominee, Donald Trump , has a campaign in disarray. The campaign is lagging behind on field staff, fundraising, and campaign infrastructure, and Trump has publicly dismissed the idea that he needs to pay for a robust digital operation.

For Patrick Ruffini, a highly regarded digital strategist in Republican circles who was featured in Draper's 2013 piece, Trump's decision to go without those resources mean little to him. As a committed member of the #NeverTrump movement, Ruffini wouldn't have worked for Trump anyway. But we wanted to learn about something in which we had no expertise -- what Trump is giving up by not running a modern presidential campaign. On this week's podcast, Ruffini joins us to give some key insights into whether Trump is going to provide an efficient, effective route to a win, and what Republicans might do if he can't.