Who Is This Guy?’ In Connected Political World, Few Know Donald Trump
WASHINGTON — Senator Lamar Alexander has run in elite national political circles for decades, sought the presidency twice and served as governor of Tennessee, cabinet secretary and university president. He does not know Donald J. Trump.
“Never met him,” said Mr. Alexander, a Tennessee Republican now in his third term.
That disconnect helps explain the awkward courtship ritual transpiring between Republicans in Washington and their party’s presumed presidential nominee: Most of them have no real clue about the man other than what they have read, seen on cable news or absorbed from watching his reality TV show, “The Apprentice.”
“It is hard to trust someone until you know them,” Mr. Alexander noted. “And it is hard to know someone until you meet them.”
It is not just lawmakers. Top representatives of the K Street lobbying and strategic communications world say they are in the same boat.
