As he intended, Donald Trump has hit a nerve.
"We've got 15-16 very serious people running for president — and one clown," fumed Shawn Steel, California's representative to the Republican National Committee, the GOP's organizing body. "Trump is a pig, and he's coming in upsetting every cart he can find, throwing dishes off the table."
"Intolerable and inexcusable," declared the state Assembly Republican leader, Kristin Olsen of Modesto. "Somebody who has never been active in the party and is looking for his 15 minutes of fame."
The derision sounds personal because it is.
For years California Republicans have tried to change their party's image, to invite everyone into the pool — especially Latinos, whose enmity arose after a 1994 GOP effort to block immigrants from state services.