Officials in the Democratic Party were apparently fine with a fight with Donald Trump in the general election, but were nervous about Sen. Rand Paul, according to emails leaked by WikiLeaks.
A memo in the recent batch of leaked emails released by the anti-secrecy website showed the Clinton campaign’s fear of Paul, a Republican from Kentucky. The memo was part of the “Podesta Emails,” containing thousands of emails from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.
The memo referred to “Pied Piper” candidates, or candidates who would only appeal to a certain demographic of voters. They included Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, and Trump.
“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,” the memo reads.
The author of the memo adds that there should be a strategic goal of “elevating the Pied Piper candidates so that they are leaders of the pack and tell the press to [take] them seriously.”
Paul, as well as Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Jeb Bush, Bobby Jindal, and Chris Christie were Republicans that were apparently worth worrying about, according to the unnamed author of the memo.
