Hillary Clinton to form "Republicans for Hillary" group to exploit furore over Donald Trump

Hillary Clinton is to assemble a “Republicans for Hillary” group as she seeks to exploit GOP disarray over Donald Trump’s nomination as the party’s presidential candidate.

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The move is part of a sharp tack to the Right planned by Mrs Clinton’s campaign after being forced to adopt a Left-wing posture by Bernie Sanders' populist challenge for the Democratic party’s nomination.

It will involve wooing wealthy Republican donors alienated by the prospect of Mr Trump as the party’s standard bearer in November’s poll,according to the New York Times.

Mrs Clinton is also cultivating links with prominent Republican figures she got to know during her time as American secretary of state in the Obama administration.

Among them are Mark Salter, a senior adviser to John McCain, the defeated Republican candidate in the 2008 election, who has already declared his support for Mrs Clinton after Mr Trump tied up the party’s nomination this week.

They also include Robert Gates, a former US defence secretary in both George W Bush's and Barack Obama’s administrations, and General David Petraeus, a former CIA director and ex-commander of allied coalition forces in Iraq. Both men are Republicans who have lavishly praised Mrs Clinton, with Gen Petraeus predicting she would make a “tremendous president”.

In a further move, Mrs Clinton plans deploy her husband as she adopts a more centrist posture designed to win over more conservative voters.

Bill Clinton - still popular among white working-class voters from his time as president - will “come out retirement and be in charge” of creating jobs in economic black spots, the likely Democratic nominee said during a visit to West Virginia.

In addition, Mrs Clinton is trying to attract working-class white women who tend to vote Republican but who may have been disenchanted with Mr Trump’s reputation for sexism.

“I invite a lot of Republicans and independents who I’ve been seeing on the campaign trail, who’ve been reaching out to me, I invite them to join with Democrats,Let’s get off the red [Republican] or the blue [Democrat] team. Let’s get on the American team.”

The move to tap into more conservative support reflects a confidence in Mrs Clinton’s camp that Left-wing and younger voters who have supported Mr Sanders in the Democratic primaries will swing behind her in November, at least out of revulsion for Mr Trump.

It also comes as a succession of senior Republicans have said they cannot support Mr Trump even if they cannot bring themselves to vote for Mrs Clinton. 

George W Bush and his father George HW Bush, both former presidents, have declined to back the billionaire property developer’s candidacy, as has Jeb Bush, who was repeatedly insulted by Mr Trump during the primary campaign. Paul Ryan, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, said he is “not ready” to endorse Mr Trump, while Mitt Romney, the party’s 2012 presidential candidate, has also said he will not support him.

Mrs Clinton’s attempts to gain support from Left and Right is reminiscent of her husband’s 1990s approach of “triangulation”, a term coined by Dick Morris, his chief pollster,  to describe a centrist ideology that supposedly transcended the traditional wings of the political spectrum.