What a Secret Memo to Top Republicans Says About Donald Trump

In a seven-page memo, the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s executive director, Ward Baker, presented advice for how his party’s Senate candidates would react to Trump as the GOP presidential nominee.

But the memo also says that Trump’s rise in the polls “exists because Washington politicians promise change, but don’t deliver”. “These are the same character traits our candidates should be advancing in 2016”. There were plenty of similar pieces over the summer and early fall, but at that point, the idea of a Trump nomination was largely academic. It urges Senate candidates to grab one to the best parts of Trump’s candidacy, but also highlights problem areas. Check out the Trump clip and the Kasich ad below.

In a statement, NRSC spokeswoman Andrea Bozek said, “It would be malpractice for the Senatorial committee not to prepare our candidates for every possible Republican and Democrat nominee and election scenario”. Most people like other people who they sense are “genuine”, and so when Trump is genuine, it’s easy for him to make his opponents look like flat-footed fakers-which, of course, is exactly what they are-and that just serves to reinforce the thrust of Trump’s argument and justification for his candidacy. The campaign did not immediately respond to a request for more information.

In September, Trump did not challenge a supporter at a Rochester, N.H., event who said, “We have a problem in this country”.

“Candidates shouldn’t go near this ground other than to say that your wife or daughter is offended by what Trump said”, Baker wrote. Most discounted the possibility that it could actually happen.

“Obviously, we all know from history that if you have a weak top of the ticket, that has a significant effect on the states, particularly the swing states”, said ex-GOP nominee Sen.

Some Republicans repelled by Mr. Trump feel little urgency to attack him because, they say, he is preventing what they see as an even less desirable standard-bearer – Senator Ted Cruz of Texas – from consolidating the votes of hard-line conservatives. Consider featuring a candidate in a field ripping up a rotten tree stump so the field can be cleared and planting can be done. “It’s time to change the way you and your campaign are presented”. Trump is so outspoken, outrageous, and newsworthy on a daily basis that candidates will be asked on a daily basis for their reaction to the latest Trump-splosion. “Keep the focus on your own campaign and the voters back home”.

Republican Party elites and elected officials have privately fretted in recent weeks over Trump’s continued front-runner status in the GOP presidential contest, concerned that Trump, who has made divisive and controversial statements about Mexican immigrants, Muslims and others, could be a liability for the party in the general election.