She’s a woman, get it? Giving her the campaign manager’s job will help Trump appeal to female voters, according to Corey Lewandowski , the former Trump campaign manager who is best known for manhandling a female reporter and bullying female colleagues.

After turning off women across the country, Donald Trump is now trying to win them back.

“It’s important that Kellyanne is with him as often as possible,’’ said Lewandowski, now a CNN analyst. “Number one, it’s a woman. He needs a high-profile woman he can listen to and understand what the gender gap is. She also brings a sense of calmness to Donald Trump.”


As if that’s enough to erase everything voters already know about Trump and his attitude toward women. Take Trump’s effort to raise questions about Hillary Clinton’s “stamina.’’

Of various credible avenues of attack against Clinton, generating doubts about resilience is not one of them. She has endured years of interrogation about numerous alleged scandals, not to mention 11 hours of aggressive congressional questioning just a year ago about the Benghazi attack. Not even Clinton’s enemies think of her as weak. After all, you can order a Hillary Clinton “nutcracker.” It’s not meant as a compliment, but it does speak to a certain toughness.

Yet the willingness to question Clinton’s physical and mental strength is typical sexist Trump. After all, he spent the last year insulting women, from Megyn Kelly and Heidi Cruz to the mother of an American soldier who died in Iraq. Meanwhile, Trump’s dear friend and political adviser is Roger Ailes, who was ousted as chairman of Fox News after former anchor Gretchen Carlson sued him for sexual harassment and at least 20 other women came forward with similar allegations, all of which Ailes denies.

It was Ailes, according to The New York Times, who convinced Trump to shake up his campaign team, which resulted in the naming of Conway, a well-known pollster and strategist, as his campaign manager. One of her first tasks was finessing Ailes’s role: “He obviously has no formal or informal role with the campaign, but Mr. Trump speaks to many different people,” Conway said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday show. In other words, Ailes doesn’t advise the campaign, he just advises Trump.


Now come Trump supporters to point out Bill Clinton’s history of infidelity and alleged sexual harassment. However, absent divorce, you can’t choose your relatives. You can choose your friends. And Trump has been clear in backing this buddy.

Issues matter in this race, and Conway knows it. As The Daily Beast pointed out, in an interview Conway did back in January, when she was working for a PAC that supported Ted Cruz, she said that Trump’s own words were the most powerful weapon against him — especially with women.

“For women, seeing is believing, and when they hear Donald Trump in his own words, they can make a clear-headed decision about, ‘Will the real Donald Trump please stand up?’ ” Conway said at the time.

For example, the former pro-abortion-rights businessman is now so opposed to abortion as a candidate that he told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews that women should be subject to some form of punishment if the procedure is banned. Trump walked back the comment after the ensuing outcry. But why should any woman, abortion-rights proponent or not, trust anything he says about reproductive rights — or any other issue?


That’s the heart of Trump’s problem, and no campaign manager — man or woman — can change that.

Joan Vennochi can be reached at vennochi@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @Joan_Vennochi.