Donald Trump worries NC GOP leaders; 'turning off a lot of people'

Charlotte Observer ^ | March 5, 2016 | Tim Funk

[C19fan]

The Republican establishment’s panic at the prospect of the GOP nominating Donald Trump for president has spread to North Carolina, which will hold its presidential primary March 15.

Echoing Mitt Romney, the party’s 2012 presidential nominee, and scores of other party elders around the country, some longtime North Carolina Republican leaders say they’re worried that Trump at the top of the ticket in November could hurt the chances of other GOP candidates – including those for governor and U.S. Senate – listed lower on the ballot.

[C19fan]

In 2008, the GOP ran McCain and in the process of losing the POTUS election lost 8 senate seats and 21 house seats. In 2012, Romney "coat tails" included losing 2 senate seats and 8 house seats.

[MNJohnnie]

So the candiate who is bring in record number of voters to the GOP Primaries is “turning off a lot of people”?

Well then no problem. Cruz should be able to cruz right in and win the state easily.

[dynoman]

The GOP elite apparently are turning off people in Maine;

[Donglalinger]

180 degrees out of phase as always

[ObozoMustGo2012]

These “leaders” should be more worried about these #NeverTrump clowns who are going to be the ones staying home, not the candidate.

Again, the GOPe focuses on the symptom, and not the problem.

[orangeTank]

In other words, these guys are worried about losing their stronghold on systemic corruption. What a shame.

[Kudsman]

Mark Steyn to J. Rubin moments ago : “you are going to need a much smaller tent”. Bwahahahaha!

[GOPJ]

Great find... got a link?

And yeah, I think the GOPe to totally capable of fraud...

[SE Mom]

Steyn is on a roll today!

[Samwell Tarly]

North Carolina has had no Republican leadership since Jesse Helms left.

[LS]

“Turning off a lot of people” who vote for him.

[wbill]

Just my $0.02....

I like both Trump and Cruz. I think that either will do a good job, and it's nice to have a choice, for a change.

I *also* think that if Trump gets the nomination, he'll take the presidency in a rout. Absolutely Reganesque.

He's running the same campaign as Obama did in 2008, which though I didn't like it, I must admit was successful. In 2008, Obama ran against the current administration ("Bush's Fault!!") while simultaneously running against his own party ("This Hillary Clinton, she's been a part of Washington Politics for 20 years."). The only person he *didn't* run against was John McCain, largely because he didn't need to - McCain's candidacy was imploding all on it's own.

Like it or not, this worked in 2008 for BO.

Fast forward to 2016. Trump is using the same playbook (Obama Bad! GOPe Bad!), and has been fairly successful thus far. The Dems are in complete disarray (two 60s retreads? really?), much like Republicans were in 2008.

I'm thinking that if Trump gets the nomination, we'll see a replay of the 2008 election, only with the Republican party as the winner. But, I've been wrong before.

[MNJohnnie]

NICE!

[dynoman]

It was on Twitter.

INSIDE THE MAINE CAUCUS -- Firsthand Accounts & Irregularities #Trump2016 #AlwaysTrump (Please forgive any typos) pic.twitter.com/WFeuLpEs0t— ViveLaFrance(@vivelafra) March 7, 2016

[Flick Lives]

Interesting, and disturbing, article.

[dynoman]

There's more, for whatever it's worth. Certainly not anything different than what we see posted about Trump over and over and over;

Bloody Kansas (written before the KS caucus) http://lamecherry.blogspot.com/2016/03/bloody-kansas.html?m=1

The Power Behind Ted Cruz Election Fraud http://lamecherry.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-power-behind-ted-cruz-election-fraud.html?m=1

Ted Cruz is Scared (very thought provoking) http://lamecherry.blogspot.com/2016/03/ted-cruz-is-scared.html?m=1

Proof of Ted Cruz Vote Fraud in Kansas and Maine http://lamecherry.blogspot.com/2016/03/proof-of-ted-cruz-vote-fraud-in-kansas.html?m=1

Read and think about it for a second. Not that it matters now...

If true there will be less of it in the primary states, especially the open primary states and ones that require ID.

Jeff Roe is from Kansas City. He’s a sleezebag. So was the guy Ted fired, and so is the guy that replaced him - busted for hiring illegal aliens - twice.

There’s no doubt Jeff is well versed in gutter politics.

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“It was Mr. Roe who hired Mr. Tyler to be the Cruz campaign’s spokesman. (In an interview this month, Mr. Tyler said he had “learned a lot” from Mr. Roe. “Jeff wins,” Mr. Tyler said, adding, “I don’t think anything we’ve done is underhanded or deceptive or anything like that.”)

But back home, Mr. Roe’s allies and opponents alike have seen a familiar imprint in the Cruz campaign’s recent exploits, which have included a Photoshopped image of Mr. Rubio and the misleading suggestion, on the night of the Iowa caucuses, that Ben Carson was leaving the race.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/24/us/politics/ted-cruz-campaign-manager-jeff-roe.html?_r=0

---

All been done before by Jeff Roe. Then there is this;

---

"Political consultant Jeff Roe, who is based in Kansas City, is Ted Cruz's campaign manager — and the architect of the Texas senator's surprising first-place finish.

Roe is hardly a household name even amongst the political chattering class. (He has less than 6,000 Twitter followers.) Locally, he's most famous for commissioning the mean-spirited ad that upset State Auditor Tom Schweich and may have factored into his suicide, at least according to former U.S. Senator John Danforth, who blasted "politics that has gone so hideously wrong" in his funeral oration. Roe has been labeled "the Karl Rove of Missouri" — and the people calling him that don't consider it a compliment.

But as last night's results proved, he knows what he's doing. Cruz didn't just hold off all the other candidates vying for Iowa's large block of conservative voters. He did it even while beating Donald Trump. It was a wild, complicated race, and you have to respect the guy who figured out how to propel any candidate, much less one who's thoroughly loathed by everyone he meets, to victory.

In an interview with Chris Wallace a few weeks ago, Roe discussed a few secrets to his success — namely, a simple message and strong branding. Roe comes across as intensely analytical. He doesn't just know how long the average voter looks at a mailer (17 seconds); he knows how long he wants you to look at one touting Cruz (45 seconds). "When we communicate with the voter, we want it to be simple, clear and reinforce our candidate's brand," he says. For Cruz, that was "strong Christian conservative leader."

A recent New York Times Magazine piece delved more deeply into how Roe & Co. made those words resonate for Cruz, who'd hitherto been identified mostly as a conservative, not necessarily a Christian. Writes Robert Draper,

"One morning early in January, in the lobby of a public library in Onawa, Iowa, I listened to Cruz’s campaign manager, Jeff Roe, as he explained a central challenge of his previous few months. ‘‘Prior to March 23,’’ Roe said, ‘‘if you were to word-cloud ‘Ted Cruz,’ which we do every day — take all the Google mentions and Internet searches, dump them into a file and form a cloud — you can’t find ‘evangelical.’ ’’ In other words, voters were largely unaware of the Tea Party firebrand’s religious faith. To convince evangelicals that Ted Cruz was the ‘‘righteous’’ candidate, Roe told me, his team needed to sell him as such, from the very beginning: ‘‘Regardless of what you’ve got in the bank, you’d better determine the narrative of the campaign, and show that’s who we are, every day."

Last night's results suggest that effort worked beautifully.

Yes, Iowa is unusually dominated by evangelicals, and yes, if Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum are any indication, Cruz faces an uphill battle to get the Republican nomination, much less win a single state. But we have to hand it to Roe. Never before has a candidate that so many Americans find this intensely annoying managed to make it this far."

http://www.riverfronttimes.com/newsblog/2016/02/02/missouris-own-jeff-roe-was-the-wind-beneath-ted-cruzs-iowa-wings

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Nothing like this is coming out about the Trump or Kasich campaigns. If there was anything like this going on with Trump the media would be screaming it from the rooftops.

[Southnsoul]

I’m from North Carolina and you’re exactly right.

[RitaOK]

PRICELESS!!

[JSDude1]

Hopefully they’ll realize that the best Constitutional Conservative in the race who won’t have negative coat-tails is Conservative Ted Cruz!

[erkelly]

So I gather Donald Trump is worried about the GOP NC leaders? This is very badly worded headline!