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            Some US Conservative Groups Launch New Bid to Stop Trump

   by Ken Bredemeier

   Conservative and Republican groups in the United States are mounting
   acerbic new television advertising campaigns to try to block
   billionaire real estate mogul Donald Trump from capturing the party's
   2016 presidential nomination.

   In all, several anti-Trump organizations say they plan to spend at
   least $10 million in the next week on the ads. Many of them are aimed
   at voters in the southeastern state of Florida and the Midwestern state
   of Illinois, two big states where Republicans are holding March 15
   party nominating elections and political surveys show Trump with leads
   over his remaining three opponents.

   The ads characterize Trump as a liberal out of touch with the dominant
   conservative character of the Republican Party, a military draft
   dodger, and a tycoon with little empathy for the powerless who have
   stood in the path of his business empire.

   Club for Growth Action -- a conservative, anti-tax organization -- has
   one ad running in Florida, saying Trump "hides behind bankruptcy laws
   to duck paying his bills and kill American jobs. He even tried to kick
   an elderly widow out of her home through eminent domain. Real tough
   guy."

   Another group, American Future Fund, called Trump a draft dodger who
   has disparaged American prisoners-of-war captured by the North
   Vietnamese more than four decades ago and "hasn't served his country a
   day in his life. Donald Trump is a phony. Stop him now."

   Trump, a one-time television reality show host who has never held
   elective office, is the front-runner in the chase to win the party's
   presidential nomination, although his closest challenger, Texas Senator
   Ted Cruz, has edged closer to Trump in the delegate count after
   splitting contests with him in four states Saturday.

   GOP sees big risks with Trump

   Influential figures in the Republican Party -- including its losing
   2012 nominee, Mitt Romney -- are trying to block Trump's unexpected,
   months-long surge to the top of the Republican field, fearing that he
   would lose November's national election to the leading Democratic
   candidate -- former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -- and possibly
   imperil Republican control of Congress.

   In an odd twist of fortune for the party, not all anti-Trump activists
   are enamored with Cruz, a conservative agitator in the halls of
   Congress who at various times has aimed his barbs at both Republican
   and Democratic leaders.

   Cruz, however, has emerged as perhaps the best, last alternative to
   Trump, and the new ads have only one target: the 69-year-old Trump.

   "The momentum is shifting away from Donald Trump," said Club for Growth
   chief David McIntosh. "Overwhelming wins by Senator Ted Cruz in Kansas
   and Maine, and a delegate tie in Louisiana, showed that Republican
   voters don't want a big-government liberal like Donald Trump at the top
   of the [Republican] ticket. They know that Trump would cost Republicans
   the White House, the Senate majority and, ultimately, the Supreme
   Court."

   A Supreme Court vacancy exists because of the death last month of
   Justice Antonin Scalia, for 30 years a conservative stalwart on the
   country's highest court. U.S. President Barack Obama, a Democrat, is
   planning to name a replacement soon, but Republicans say they expect to
   block the nomination in hopes of leaving the choice to the next
   president.

   Numbers, hopes for upcoming contests

   So far, Republicans have been apportioning convention delegates based
   on the vote totals in the 20 states that have held nominating contests.
   Michigan, a large Midwestern state that votes Tuesday, will apportion
   its convention delegates based on the vote count there; but both
   Florida and the Midwestern state of Ohio have winner-take-all contests
   on March 15, even as Illinois splits its delegates the same day.

   Two other Republican presidential contenders, Florida Senator Marco
   Rubio and Ohio Governor John Kasich, say they expect to win their
   respective states, but political surveys show Trump with a substantial
   lead for the cache of 99 convention delegates in Florida and a small
   edge for Ohio's 66. Cruz says he plans to campaign in Florida in the
   coming days to try to upset both Trump and Rubio.

   Trump is calling for Rubio, who has won only two nominating contests so
   far, to drop out of the presidential campaign, a demand Rubio has
   rebuffed. Both Trump and Cruz say they want the race to be narrowed to
   a contest between just the two of them.
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   top-donald-trump/3223525.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/us-conservatives-new-television-ads-stop-donald-trump/3223525.html