Re: 2016 GOP presidential candidates
Date: April 7, 2015
Friends, This memo is intended to outline the strategy and goals a potential Hillary Clinton presidential campaign would have regarding the 2016 Republican presidential field.
Clearly most of what is contained in this memo is work the DNC is already doing. This exe rcise is intended to put those ideas to paper.
Our Goals & Strategy
Our hope is that the goal of a potential HRC campaign and the DNC would be one -‐ in -‐ the -‐ same: to make whomever the Republicans nominate unpalatable to a majority of the electorate. We ha ve outlined three strategies to obtain our goal: 1)
Force all Republican candidates to lock themselves into extreme conservative positions that will hurt them in a general election; 2)
Undermine any credibility /trust Republican presidential candidates have to make inroads to our coalition or independents; 3)
Muddy the waters on any potential attack lodged against HRC. Operationalizing the Strategy Pied Piper Candidates There are two ways to approach the strategies mentioned above. The first is to use the field as a whole to inflict damage on itself similar to what happened to Mitt Romney in 2012. The variety of candidates is a positive here, and many of the lesser known can serve as a cudgel to move the more established candidates further to the right. In this scenario, we don’t want to marginalize the more extreme candidates, but make them more “Pied Piper” candidates who actually represent the mainstream of the Republican Party. Pied Piper candidates include , but aren’t limited to : • Ted Cruz
• Donald Trump
• Ben Carson
We need to be elevating the Pied Piper candidates so that they are leaders of the pack and tell the press to them seriously. Undermining Their Message & Credibility
Most of the more -‐ established candidates will want to focus on building a win ning general election coalition. The “Pied Pipers” of the field will mitigate this to a degree, but more will need to be done on certain candidates to undermine their credibility among our coalition (communities of color, millennials, women) and independen t voters. In this regard, the goal here would be to show that they are just the same as every other GOP candidate: extremely conservative on these issues. Some examples:
• Jeb Bush
o What to undermine: the notion he is a “moderate” or concerned about regular Americans; perceived inroads with the Latino population. • Marco Rubio
o What to undermine: the idea he has “fresh” ideas; his perceived appeal file:///C:/Users/madeline09/Downloads/150407%20Strategy%20on%20GOP%202016ers.pdf