WSJ: An Airwaves Strategy to Beat Trump

I realize its a WSJ article and may be behind a paywall... here's a copy of the text:

By

KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL

Feb. 28, 2016 4:49 p.m. ET

992 COMMENTS

David McIntosh has been fighting for economic freedom for 30 years, and he is convinced the battle has reached a hinge moment. “The stakes really are that high,” says the president of the Club for Growth. “If we don’t do this, it’s all at risk. This is the moment.”

By “this” he means denying Donald Trump the Republican presidential nomination. The club is one of America’s most effective free-enterprise advocacy groups, and for months it has tried to alert voters, often without much other support, to the risks of a Trump nomination.

With the primary race now at a decisive moment, Mr. McIntosh is trying to rally support for a sustained anti-Trump push leading up to the winner-take-all primaries on March 15. With Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz finally confronting the front-runner, Mr. McIntosh is convinced that the billionaire can still be defeated with the help of a sustained TV and social-media assault.

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“We’ve got people on our side still saying, ‘Let’s wait and see.’ Or ‘maybe we can fix this in a brokered convention,’ ” says Mr. McIntosh. “My message is that’s too late. It’s got to be now.”

When Mr. McIntosh took over the Club for Growth presidency more than a year ago, the former Indiana congressman had no idea his first real fight would be trying to stop a TV celebrity from hijacking the Republican Party. The club usually plays in House and Senate campaigns, and it is backing no presidential candidate. “We’re neutral on the other candidates. We’ve said that both Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are gold standards—either would be great on economic issues. This is about stopping Trump.”

The Club for Growth has warned about Mr. Trump for months, even as others slumbered. The group produces white papers on every presidential candidate, parsing records and policies on taxes, trade, spending and entitlement reform. The summaries on most candidates this year are either complimentary or mixed. The one on Mr. Trump began, “Donald Trump is not a pro-growth conservative.”

Mr. McIntosh’s concern escalated as the billionaire rose in the primaries even as polling showed that Mr. Trump would lose in November. “He loses the general. But his presence on the ticket also loses us the Senate,” he says. With the recent death of Justice Antonin Scalia, he adds, “that means we lose the Supreme Court too. And that’s the most devastating. You can win back the Senate in two; you can compete for the White House in four; but the court, you lose every issue for a generation.”

The Club for Growth believes voters must be educated about Mr. Trump’s long history of progressive economic views. But those views must also be seen as a function of Mr. Trump’s commercial interests—that is, that he has a political character problem.

The group produced two such ads in Iowa that it says hurt the candidate who had otherwise brushed off criticism. One focused on Mr. Trump’s support for the Supreme Court’s Kelodecision that let government seize private property for developers. The ad said: “Trump can make millions. We lose our property rights.”

A second Iowa ad recounted Mr. Trump’s past calls for higher taxes, government-run health care and the Wall Street bailout, and argued that he is conning voters. It ends: “Trump. Just another politician.”

The club spent $1 million on those ads from Sept. 15 through Oct. 5. According to the RealClearPolitics polling average, Mr. Trump peaked in Iowa around Sept. 21, with 28% of the vote, then began a slide to 22% by Oct. 6—where he stayed for nearly a month after the ads came down. He finished second with 24%.

Mr. McIntosh’s group skipped New Hampshire, where Mr. Trump dominated and no one took him on. The club did put up ads in South Carolina. Mr. Trump won, though Mr. McIntosh believes that the ads helped cut a 20-point lead to 10. “The message of all those ads was: ‘He’s playing us for chumps.’ And it resonated,” he says.

The plan now is to apply this strategy across the key remaining primary states. The club has already raised enough money to run anti-Trump ads in two states that vote Tuesday: Oklahoma and Arkansas. The goal is to soften up Mr. Trump enough to let his competitors win a state or two. “This part is about showing that he can be beat,” says Mr. McIntosh. The Super Tuesday states allocate their delegates on a proportional basis, so a stronger Rubio or Cruz showing would limit Mr. Trump’s delegate lead.

The main targets are the first winner-take-all primaries on March 15—Florida, Ohio, Missouri and Illinois. The club is producing new ads that will focus on the victims of Mr. Trump’s business practices—his bankruptcies, Trump University, eminent domain. “They’ll show that when Trump is in charge, real average people get hurt—that he’s dangerous, that he’s not who he says he is,” Mr. McIntosh says.

The club president knows that Mr. Trump’s core supporters won’t be moved. The ads are aimed instead at the 10% to 15% of the GOP electorate who are intrigued by the billionaire’s brashness but peel away when they learn more about his past. If the club can diminish Mr. Trump, then other candidates might be able to win those states, and Mr. Trump will have a harder time getting a delegate majority.

Mr. McIntosh is also pleased that Messrs. Cruz and Rubio have picked up the club’s strategy. Mr. Rubio is hitting Mr. Trump’s business past and Mr. Cruz is hammering the point that Mr. Trump “takes advantage of the little guy.” This is a theme, Mr. McIntosh says, “that can work.”

Mr. McIntosh must raise enough money to mount a sustained campaign, and he admits some donors have been reluctant to join the fight. Some still hold the fantasy that Mr. Trump will implode, while others want their favorite candidate to attack the other non-Trumps and be the last one standing.

Others worry about becoming a Trump target. The billionaire recently tweeted about a donor who had given money to a separate anti-Trump effort: “I hear the Rickets [sic] family, who own the Chicago Cubs, are secretly spending $’s against me. They better be careful, they have a lot to hide!” Cubs owner Tom Ricketts said his family will continue to “stand up for what we believe in,” but others have been intimidated.

Mr. Trump has threatened to sue the Club for Growth for its ads and has demanded Mr. McIntosh’s resignation. Mr. McIntosh called the club’s board chairman, Steve Stephens, to warn him: “I said, ‘Trump’s calling for me to be fired.’ And he was great. His response was: ‘Just go get him.’ And that’s what we’ve all got to do.”

Ms. Strassel writes the Journal’s Potomac Watch column on Fridays.

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