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GOP Advice: To Top Trump, Tap Into Trumpism

By Clarence Page, Tribune Content Agency on

Establishment Republicans have a problem. Donald Trump isn't going away.

After five months and going strong as the party's front-runner for president, the Grand Old Party's elites have figured out that the billionaire real estate mogul and television star really could win the GOP nomination.

Why not? He's defied all of the conventional wisdom so far.

In a seven-page confidential memo, the National Republican Senatorial Committee offers poll-tested advice to you, if you're a GOP candidate, on how to get your campaign's message out, even when voters and reporters are eager to hear you sound like Trump -- for better or worse.

The central theme of the memo, which comes from NRSC executive director Ward Baker, boils down to tap into Trumpism without mimicking Trump.

That makes sense. Republicans are in a delicate situation. They desperately want the bonanza in TV ratings and support from the party's base that Trump brings to the party. They just don't want Trump.

 

He is, after all, a wild card. Whether he is in the race for profit, public service or pure ego trip, no one knows for sure. Yet, tough as it may be to live with him, party leaders are afraid to lose him unless they can keep his voters.

"We may not like it," the memo says, "but Trump has connected with voters on issues like trade with China and America's broken borders."

Issues, that is, on which the GOP has somehow lost contact with those voters. Take off your business suit, the memo advises. Roll up your shirtsleeves and start talking to people in simple words, not about "issues" but about their "problems."

"Don't insult key voter cohorts," the memo cautions, "by ignoring that America has significant problems and that Trump is offering basic solutions."

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(c) 2015 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

 

 

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