One of this week's wave of wikileaked emails from John Podesta show a Democratic Party thrilled at the thought of fighting with Donald Trump in the general election, and nervous about Rand Paul (and others).

The memo to the Democratic National Committee, dated April 7, 2015, said of 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. Pied Piper candidates include, but aren't limited to: • Ted Cruz • Donald Trump • Ben Carson We need to be elevating the Pied Piper candidates so that they are leaders of the pack and tell the press to them seriously. [sic, though the word "take" seems clearly implied between "to" and "them"]

As for Rand Paul, he is one of a group of candidates the Dems need to take down, the memo writer asserts:

more will need to be done on certain candidates to undermine their credibility among our coalition (communities of color, millennials, women) and independent voters. In this regard, the goal here would be to show that they are just the same as every other GOP candidate: extremely conservative on these issues…. • Rand Paul—What to undermine: the idea he is a "different" kind of Republican; his stance on the military and his appeal to millennials and communities of color.

Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Jeb Bush, Bobby Jindal, and Chris Christie were the other Republicans worrying the memo author. Indeed, as of a couple of months after that memo was written, Paul did indeed seem to be the most ferocious competitor among independents among the GOP wanna-bes head to head with Clinton.

Wikileaks highlighted this memo in a tweet earlier this week.

Hat tip: The Libertarian Republic