Subject: Stitch — 'Sidewire Chats' Launch Today, Bush Family Distances from Trump, Clinton Tries to Figure Out How to Run Against Him
From: Jonathan Allen <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 May 2016 12:54:00 +0000
List-Id: dff5dea186e38c29c57ca6f8fmc list <dff5dea186e38c29c57ca6f8f.326717.list-id.mcsv.net>

Welcome to the Stitch, a morning speed-read highlighting the work and insights of Newsmakers that is followed by a daily chat on hot political topics.

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NEW LAUNCH: SIDEWIRE CHATS
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Today we’re launching Sidewire Chats.

That means our platform will be focused on supporting hosted, public chat conversations about the news.

We also rebuilt Sidewire.com and updated the appearance of the Front Page on mobile. All of this has been done to better showcase the great chats happening on Sidewire. You should update Sidewire on your phone to see the latest version.

We now have more than 500 Newsmakers with Sidewire accounts, and several of them have already made plans to host recurring chats. Here are just a few:
* Democratic strategist and former spokesman for President Obama Ben LaBolt and Lis Smith, a Democratic strategist and former deputy campaign manager for Governor Martin O’Malley
* Bloomberg View columnist Eli Lake
* Republican Strategist Alex Conant, the former top communications aide to Marco Rubio
* Democratic Strategist Tracy Sefl
* Ron Christie, a former White House aide to President George W. Bush
* Mary Kate Cary, a former White House speechwriter for President George H. W. Bush

DAVID LIDSKY writes more about the launch in a feature on Sidewire published on the digital front page of Fast Company this morning.
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"It takes what everyone on the platform agrees is the best part of Sidewire—focused conversations between knowledgeable people—and packages them deftly into its own media format that can be easily consumed and shared."

—David Lidsky/Fast Company (http://www.fastcompany.com/3059586/election-2016/this-app-is-the-antidote-to-this-insane-presidential-campaign)

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Click here (http://www.fastcompany.com/3059586/election-2016/this-app-is-the-antidote-to-this-insane-presidential-campaign)  for the full Fast Company article.

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AS OTHER PARTY LEADERS COALESCE AROUND TRUMP, BUSH FAMILY KEEPS ITS DISTANCE
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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Republican elected officials moved quickly yesterday to signal their support for the party's presumptive nominee, Donald Trump. But the two biggest stars in the GOP constellation — former Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush — sent a very different messagethrough their spokesmen. According to various news reports, the Bushes won't attend the Republican National Convention in Cleveland this summer, and they won't comment on the presidential campaign.

By contrast, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton is certain to have the unabashed support of her party's most recent presidents: Her former boss, Barack Obama, and her husband, Bill Clinton.
WILLIAM KRISTOL, editor of the Weekly Standard, tells the New York Times' PATRICK HEALY, JONATHAN MARTIN & MAGGIE HABERMAN (or at least one of them) that the prospect of Trump hurting down-ballot GOP candidates or presiding over a chaotic convention could tear the party apart.
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"I think people are underestimating the degree to which you could see a crisis in the Republican Party.”

—William Kristol/NYT (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/05/us/politics/trump-gop.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share&_r=1)

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The Times crew also reports that employees of the Republican National Committee have been told it's time to go if they can't get behind Trump, a tacit acknowledgment that a number of RNC aides didn't want to work for the man who is now the party's nominee.

And Politico's BURGESS EVERETT & SEUNG MIN KIM scoop a recording of SEN. JOHN McCAIN worrying about Trump at the top of the ticket at a fundraiser for his re-election bid in Arizona last month.
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"“If Donald Trump is at the top of the ticket, here in Arizona, with over 30 percent of the vote being the Hispanic vote, no doubt that this may be the race of my life."

—Sen. John McCain/Politico (http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/trump-latinos-mccain-222810#ixzz47mYKP9sJ)

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NONE OF THIS SLOWED TRUMP'S VICTORY LAP, which was more like a media marathon. He spoke to print and broadcast outlets from his Trump Tower home all day long.

THE BIG REVEAL is that he enters his running-mate selection process with an eye onOhio Gov. John Kasich, as he told ROBERT COSTA of the Washington Post.
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"Let’s put it this way: he’s rising rapidly."

—Donald Trump/WaPo (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/donald-trump-takes-the-reins-of-a-divided-republican-party/2016/05/04/48df48ca-122a-11e6-93ae-50921721165d_story.html)

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For weeks, Kasich's team has aggressively pushed back on any suggestion that the Ohio governor might run with Trump — but Kasich was still running for president then. He dropped out yesterday to further clear Trump's path to the GOP nomination.

Costa also reports that Trump is working on a joint fundraising deal with the RNC, and Ed Rollins, who managed President Reagan's 1984 re-election bid, is now running a pro-Trump superPAC.
It's clear Trump will need major infrastructure to support his campaign, but he contends it should not be forgotten that Republican voters chose him over the unified wishes of the party establishment. JANET HOOK & MONICA LANGLEY of the Wall Street Journalreport on Trump's take (http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-trump-wonand-how-the-gop-let-him-1462390833)  in an interview conducted this week.
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"This election isn’t about the Republican Party, it’s about me. ... I’m very proud I proved an outsider can win by massive victories from the people, not from party elites or state delegates.”

—Trump/WSJ (http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-trump-wonand-how-the-gop-let-him-1462390833)

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** TRIVIAL PURSUITS
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ABOUT TODAY
It's Cinco de Mayo, which is not a holiday created by a beer company. Nor is it Mexico's Independence Day. Cinco de Mayo celebrates the Mexican victory over the French at the Battle of Puebla in 1862.

YESTERDAY'S TRIVIA
SAL WEIR was the first to respond correctly that Franklin Pierce delivered his Inaugural Address entirely from memory, without either a text or notes.

TODAY'S TRIVIA
Courtesy of Sal: Which speaker of the House also served one term as vice president of the United States?
Send answers to [email-masked]. If you're the first to answer correctly, you'll winStitch's eternal appreciation and the right to pose Friday's trivia question.

PLEASE SEND TIPS, suggestions, comments, complaints, corrections and Mother's Day gift ideas for a late shopper to [email-masked].

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CLINTON CAMP STILL FIGURING OUT HOW TO RUN AGAINST TRUMP
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ANNIE KARNI of Politico maps out the Clinton campaign's thinking on how to take on Donald Trump. The upshot: They want to hit him without diminishing her — which is basically what any candidate would hope to be able to do against an opponent.
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"She will not be passive, like we saw from so many of the Republicans he vanquished. ... But she will also not follow him into the gutter. She can challenge him in the way the Republicans wouldn't — on the issues and on his hateful rhetoric."

—Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon/Politico (http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-election-strategy-222821#ixzz47mb022lg)

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IT WAS TED CRUZ, in his last day on the campaign trail, who identified how Trump's been able to fell his rivals — with quick attacks that project his own weaknesses onto them.
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"Whatever he does, he accuses everyone else of doing,"

—Ted Cruz on Donald Trump

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I write in Roll Call that Clinton would be smart to adopt that strategy if she doesn't want to go the way of Trump's Republican opponents.
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"If Clinton wants to avoid the same fate, she’d better move fast to project some of her less attractive traits onto Trump. If they stick to her, maybe they’ll stick to him, too."

—Jonathan Allen/Roll Call (http://www.rollcall.com/news/opinion/sticking-teflon-donald#sthash.aXysqfTJ.dpuf)

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** SCOOPLET: PRIORITIES USA IS NOT WAITING TO ATTACK TRUMP
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Priorities USA is out this morning with a video that exchanges the images from a pro-Trump Super PAC ad in which Trump calls himself a unifier.

The audio is the same in both clips, as Trump talks about bringing America together for 30 seconds. But Priorities has replaced the images of fawning Trump fans with those of violence at his rallies.

Click here (https://youtu.be/U8aeOrj_WAU)  to see the Priorities video.

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** SIDEWIRE CHATS LINEUP
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* 10 a.m. ET — DAVID MORTLOCK, a former National Security Council staff member and State Department official under President Obama, joins Stitch to discuss foreign policy and the 2016 campaign.
* 12 p.m. ET — Bloomberg View's ELI LAKE launches his recurring Sidewire Chat with debut guest TOMMY VIETOR.

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** THE BIG QUESTION
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How much, if at all, will the Bush family's distance hurt Donald Trump in November?

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—30—

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