How To Damage Trump

Something I just posted in a thread at National Review:

Here are a few of the points I'd like to see made against Trump in tonight's debate (and others):

- No other Republican candidate has as close a relationship with the Clintons as Trump does. The Clinton campaign would be able to run ads featuring Trump's previous endorsements of Clinton. There's general agreement among Republicans, including Trump's supporters and self-identified liberals and moderates, that we want to defeat Clinton. Trump's lengthy and explicit record of supporting the Clintons would make him uniquely weak as a Republican nominee.

- Nobody has worse general election numbers than Trump. Rubio would be the best one to highlight this point, since his numbers are among the best. (Carson has some good numbers as well, sometimes even better than Rubio's, but he's not as good of a communicator and has shown so little interest in going after Trump, so Rubio would be better at bringing up this issue.)

- Trump is remarkably self-contradictory. Cruz could use Trump's flip-flops on whether Cruz is eligible for the presidency as an example, then cite other examples. I'd suggest making the criticism as forceful as possible, such as by saying that Trump is the most self-contradictory candidate to ever run for the presidency. In addition to "self-contradictory", I'd use the term "unstable". That has broader implications, and it's an accurate description of Trump.

- Mention at least twice (to make sure it gets remembered) that Trump openly boasts about committing adultery with many women. That's another way in which Trump is uniquely corrupt. As bad as Bill Clinton is, at least he didn't brag about his adulteries in a book he published. Bringing up this aspect of Trump's character should be especially helpful in states with large religious populations, like South Carolina and other states coming up soon. People want to like the president at a personal level, probably more so than with any other office in our nation. Trust is important. How much will people trust somebody who publishes a book bragging about damaging so many lives through adultery? (I'd recommend that the people criticizing Trump even refer to how he "destroyed homes", "wrecked lives", "ruined marriages", etc.)