.
11/20/15, "Anti-Trump Group Wants To Dissuade Supporters ‘From Voting Altogether’," Daily Caller, Scott Greer
"A new political group created by a prominent Republican consultant to
take down the candidacy of Donald Trump has a unique strategy: convince
the flamboyant billionaire’s many supporters to not vote.
According to a Friday Wall Street Journal report,
Trump Card LLC has issued a memo to potential donors that its intended
goal is to not change the opinion of Trump’s supporters in favor of
another candidate, but to keep them “from voting altogether.”
The
group, founded by GOP operative and sometime columnist Liz Mair,
promises to achieve this lofty goal through a “guerrilla campaign” that
attacks the current Republican frontrunner for his views that are
atypical of the conservative mainstream.
Some of Trump’s positions
that will be highlighted will be his support for eminent domain and
past endorsement of single-payer healthcare.
“In the absence of
our efforts, Trump is exceedingly unlikely to implode or be forced out
of the race,” the Trump Card memo reads. “The stark reality is that
unless something dramatic and unconventional is done, Trump will be the
Republican nominee and Hillary Clinton will become president.”
The
“guerrilla” tactics proposed by the group include fake pro-Trump ads
undermining his talking points, attacking the mogul’s business
experience, showcasing the apparent similarities between the former
reality TV star and arch-nemesis Rosie O’Donnell and even hiring a Trump
impersonator to show off his nastier insults.
Mair insisted to
The Wall Street Journal that Trump Card is committed to strict
confidentiality when it comes to her anti-Trump donors.
“I certainly know donors who are very happy that their fingerprints will be kept off things,” she told the Journal.
Trump Card is aiming to raise $250,000 from donors who support the other GOP candidates not named Donald J. Trump.
Other
right-leaning groups have also put Trump in their crosshairs as well.
Club for Growth, a group dedicated to fiscal conservatism, has already
spent $1 million on anti-Trump ads in early primary states and the
organization has boasted that the effort has hurt the mogul’s numbers.
New Day America, a super PAC backing Ohio Governor John Kasich, began rolling out its $2.5 million anti-Trump campaign this week.
Mair, a former staffer for John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, made waves earlier this year after she was summarily dismissed from the Scott Walker campaign over tweets in which she disparaged Iowa voters.
Earlier
this month, Mair sent out a vicious press release against Alabama Sen.
Jeff Sessions over a bill that he had no involvement with. The bill’s
sponsor was a different Sessions in Congress — Texas Rep. Pete Sessions." (RELATED: DC Flak Sends Out Hit … On Wrong Congressman)
=================
Wall St. Journal article referenced above: "The goal, according to the memo,
isn’t to convert Mr. Trump’s supporters into backing other candidates,
but to dissuade them from voting altogether, especially in New
Hampshire’s influential first-in-the-nation primary....Donors backing Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Mr. Kasich and Mr. Bush are interested."
11/20/15, "GOP Operative Plans ‘Guerrilla Campaign’ Against Donald Trump," Wall St. Journal, Beth Reinhard and Janet Hook
"The Republican establishment, increasingly alarmed by the enduring strength of Donald Trump’s
presidential bid, is ratcheting up efforts to knock him out of the
race, including the first attempt to unite donors from rival camps into a
single anti-Trump force.
A well-connected GOP operative is
planning a “guerrilla campaign” backed by secret donors to “defeat and
destroy” the celebrity businessman’s candidacy, according to a memo
reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
A super PAC supporting Ohio Gov. John Kasich is airing a series of ads targeting Mr. Trump. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush
struck with his bluntest attacks yet on Friday, and the super PAC
associated with the Club for Growth, an economic conservative group, is
trying to raise money to resume attack ads that it has run in Iowa
against Mr. Trump.
Together, the efforts seem to represent a
turning point in the GOP contest, in which other campaigns have
previously been skittish about taking on Mr. Trump so directly. The
sense of urgency has mounted in part because Mr. Trump continues at or
near the top of GOP polls, even after many predicted that the Paris
terror attacks would lead voters to turn to a more seasoned candidate."...
[Ed. note: "Seasoned candidates" gave us every problem that exists today, obviously.]
(continuing): "The most concerted effort is Trump Card LLC, the self-styled guerrilla campaign being launched by Liz Mair, the former online communications director of the Republican National Committee.
“In
the absence of our efforts, Trump is exceedingly unlikely to implode or
be forced out of the race,” according to the Trump Card memo. “The
stark reality is that unless something dramatic and unconventional is
done, Trump will be the Republican nominee and Hillary Clinton will become president.”"
[Ed. note: As everyone knows, the GOP E loves Hillary, would be thrilled if she were president.]
(continuing): "Opposition research, grass-roots organizing and donor outreach has
been going on for weeks, Ms. Mair said, while declining to name any
backers. “It’s loosely organized and highly confidential,” she said. “I
certainly know donors who are very happy that their fingerprints will be
kept off things.”
Asked about Ms. Mair’s campaign on Friday, Mr.
Trump declined to respond in detail, but said through his spokeswoman
Hope Hicks that Ms. Mair “worked for Scott Walker and lost her job—who
can blame her?”
Ms. Mair worked briefly for Wisconsin Gov. Walker
while he ran for president, but quit after her pre-campaign
social-media posts disparaging Iowans were unearthed.
As a limited liability company, Trump Card LLC wouldn’t have to disclose its donors to the Federal Election Commission. Viveca Novak,
communications director for the Center for Responsive Politics, said
she was aware of no restrictions on the kinds of political activities
that could be funded through an LLC. “Anyone can set one up,” she said.
“You don’t know who is behind it.”
Ms. Mair, who has ties to the libertarian movement and the GOP establishment, said that donors backing Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Mr. Kasich and Mr. Bush are interested, and that some worry that going public could hurt their candidate.
Rick Wilson,
a Republican media consultant, said in an interview that he is prepared
to make ads for the new group. Mr. Wilson isn’t involved in fundraising
but predicted that a number of Republican donors will start bankrolling
an anti-Trump effort.
“People are finally taking the threat that
Trump will destroy the Republican Party and lose the general election
to Hillary Clinton seriously,” said Mr. Wilson, who recently started
working for a new super PAC backing Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. The
super PAC supporting Mr. Kasich, New Day for America, on Thursday began
airing a series of ads that show Mr. Trump and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson while invoking the Nov. 13 Paris terrorist attacks. “On-the-job training for president does not work,” an ad says.
Mr.
Trump responded by threatening to sue the super PAC. “John Kasich
should focus his special-interest money on building up his failed image,
not negative ads on me,” Mr. Trump said in one of a stream of posts on
Twitter.
Mr. Bush, on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Friday, criticized
Mr. Trump’s proposals to tighten U.S. security with measures such as
closing mosques. Mr. Trump also recently seemed to endorse setting up a Muslim registration database, but backed away from that on Friday.
“You
talk about closing mosques, you talk about registering people, that’s
just wrong,” Mr. Bush said. “It’s manipulating people’s angst and their
fears. That’s not strength; that’s weakness.”
Ms. Mair’s
anti-Trump effort is planning an especially blunt and direct approach.
The group’s memo said it would be pitching opposition research to media
in early-voting states, as well as radio and television ads and Web
videos that attract media attention based on their “outrageousness and
boundary-breaking or bizarre nature.” One possible ad would link
Mr. Trump’s views and style to his celebrity foe, Rosie O’Donnell, in
hopes of provoking a reaction from Mr. Trump, according to the memo.
Other
possible tactics include fake pro-Trump ads that show him supporting
socialized medicine, seizing property through eminent domain and taking
other positions that stray from GOP orthodoxy; using a Trump
impersonator to show him insulting people; and attacking his business
record in “stark, nasty terms.”
The goal, according to the memo,
isn’t to convert Mr. Trump’s supporters into backing other candidates,
but to dissuade them from voting altogether, especially in New
Hampshire’s influential first-in-the-nation primary. For financing, the memo said the group is seeking $250,000 from donors in multiple GOP presidential camps.
Ms. Mair helped lead the online media campaign for 2008 Republican nominee John McCain while at the RNC, and advised presidential candidate Carly Fiorina during her 2010 Senate race.
Until
Mr. Kasich’s super PAC ads, there has been little paid advertising
attacking Mr. Trump. That is in part because donors have been reluctant
to invest in such efforts, because they assumed that his candidacy would
fizzle on its own.
Some candidates, such as Mr. Cruz, have been
reluctant to attack Mr. Trump because they hope to inherit his
supporters if and when his candidacy fades. Others candidates willing to
criticize him, including Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, have either remained at the back of the pack or dropped out of the race.
The
super PAC associated with the Club for Growth, which also doesn’t
disclose its donors, earlier this fall spent $1 million on anti-Trump
ads that ran for three weeks in Iowa. The ads attacked Mr. Trump’s
positions on taxes, trade and other issues that the group said exposed
him as a liberal—a contention that Mr. Trump denied.
Doug
Sachtelben, a Club for Growth spokesman, said they believed the ads
contributed to a drop in Mr. Trump’s standing in Iowa polls in early
October, when Mr. Carson rose to first place in several surveys. Mr.
Sachtelben said the super PAC hoped to run more ads like that in Iowa
and New Hampshire, but couldn’t say when. “We’re still in the
fundraising stage,” he said."
...........................
"Write to Beth Reinhard at beth.reinhard@wsj.com and Janet Hook at janet.hook@wsj.com"
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Comment: The point is to prevent half of America from choosing its nominee. Everyone knows it, it's been that way for decades. The job of "Professional Republicans" is to make a mockery of the country and rake in $1 billion every 4 years running a fraud.
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