Katie Packer, a Republican campaign consultant with deep roots in Michigan GOP politics, is leading the superPAC, Our Principles, that is collecting millions of dollars from top Republicans in an all-out bid to derail Donald Trump’s candidacy.
Packer, who served as deputy campaign manager for Mitt Romney in 2012, brushes aside critics who say the “Stop Trump” effort started too late. Our Principles is dumping millions of dollars into the winner-take-all state of Florida – a mix of TV ads, media coverage and social media – in advance of the Sunshine State’s Tuesday primary.
Stopping Trump certainly would be more difficult if he wins Florida and Ohio (another winner-take-all prize) on Tuesday, Packer concedes. But she also points out that a majority of states have not yet voted and 20 percent of the GOP delegates will not be awarded until May.
Loyal Republicans will gradually realize, she said, that Trump at the top of the ticket would result in losses across the country for GOP Senate and House candidates.
When Packer took on the job of taking on Trump, she didn’t appreciate the amount of hate that would be aimed at her by supporters of the unconventional candidate.
“I don’t suggest that’s all of Donald Trump supporters,” Packer told USA Today. “But he does seem to have brought out a group of people that used to feel like they needed to sort of keep quiet because what they say isn’t acceptable in polite society, and Donald Trump seems to have given them permission to just speak their mind.”
She called the flood of emails and tweets threatening to kill her, her family and her dog “the most hateful vitriol that I’ve ever encountered in 25 years in politics.”
Here’s a part of Packer’s message, as told to The Washington Post in a series of emails:
Simply because someone wins a plurality in a string of states does not mean they have won the hearts and the minds of the party. And they have not won the nomination until they amass 1,237 delegates. That is just a fact. And conservatives will not simply throw away decades of work because the media is pressuring them to move the process along and ignore the fact that the candidate they are being asked to rally around is dangerous to their movement and their country.
… Donald Trump has the highest negatives of any candidate in the race and would have the highest of any nominee at the beginning of a general election since modern polling began. He simply cannot win the general election. He already has a 21-point gender gap among women, and not a single ad has been run highlighting his record of misogyny and objectifying women. Not a single Spanish-language ad has been run using his comments about Mexicans and immigrants. This would make “self-deportation” look like the welcome wagon. Not a single ad has been run outlining his history of racist issues and unwillingness to denounce David Duke and the KKK. He is already running at historically low rates among minority populations. In order to offset the gap he has with women, Hispanics, African Americans and independents, he would have to win 80-85 percent of white men. That is a tough hill to climb. In fact, the Washington Post-ABC survey reveals that he is getting a smaller share of the white vote than Romney did in 2012.
One aspect of the ongoing campaign that riles Packer is when GOP operatives who downplayed Trump’s impact for many months now offer her tips on how to short-circuit the frontrunner over the coming weeks.
On Twitter this morning, Packer said this: “Public advice coming from GOP ‘experts’ on stopping Trump after months of ignoring, coddling or, worse, bolstering him is laughable.”
Chad Selweski is a freelance writer and blogger with a centrist point of view from suburban Detroit, Macomb County (population 870,000), home of the “Reagan Democrats.” Selweski worked as the political reporter for The Macomb Daily for 30 years. This is cross posted from his blog Politically Speaking.