Donald Trump is a crazy loudmouth. But he won't wreck 2016 for the GOP.

Donald Trump seems to be having a ball running for president. Many Republicans, however, are less than amused by his bombastic rhetoric.

Trump has gone on the attack against the media, Republican Party leadership, illegal immigrants in general and those from Mexico in particular, and occasionally Barack Obama and his administration. Thanks to his personal wealth, Trump can finance his entire campaign if he so chooses, and therefore has to account to no one for his messaging or whatever damage it does.

That latter point has many in the party concerned over Trump's ferocious rhetoric. For one thing, the GOP wants to reach out to Latino voters, and has a legitimate opening after six-plus years of Latinos being largely overlooked by Barack Obama. Republicans have begun reminding Latino voters that Obama could have addressed immigration reform in the first two years of his presidency — as Obama in fact promised to do in the 2008 campaign — but instead shunted them aside in favor of other priorities.

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It's certainly not going to be easy for the GOP to woo Latinos in 2016. But it's possible. Unless Donald Trump blows it for the rest of us. Or, at least, that's the fear of party elites.

Trump has rallied the disappointed and disgruntled in the Republican rank and file, especially those who had hoped for a more significant change in direction after the GOP's 2014 midterm victory. Unlike the Tea Party, which coalesced around a coherent agenda in reaction to expansion of government intrusion into private marketplaces (think the TARP bailouts and ObamaCare), Trump taps into an inchoate, ill-defined disillusionment. Part of that may come from the GOP's strategy to conduct itself as a governing party, hoping to impress voters by putting aside the obstruction previously necessitated by its ability to only control the House. While that lacks some of the fireworks some had hoped to see after the election, Republicans hope to use the return of regular order to woo voters with promises of responsible leadership and competency after years of disorder in Washington, D.C.

The worry for GOP leadership is that Trump will foreclose those possibilities with his demagoguery. Many still recall the damage done to the party in the 2012 election by Todd Akin, the GOP nominee for the U.S. Senate race in Missouri against a very vulnerable Democratic incumbent, Claire McCaskill. Akin blew the race by talking about "legitimate rape." Richard Mourdock lost another winnable Senate election in Indiana over a similar controversy. In 2010, poorly prepared Senate candidates in other races — Sharron Angle, Christine O'Donnell — not only lost their seats but made the media environment more difficult for other Republicans as well.

The media has already begun making Trump the issue. A new Monmouth poll shows Trump and Jeb Bush roughly tied in first place nationally. (Though combined Bush and Trump only score 28 percent, despite their large advantage in name recognition.) Amusingly, all three major cable networks have devoted more time to Trump than Hillary Clinton in the past week. And MSNBC has devoted by far the most amount of time to Trump coverage, according to a TV Eyes analysis.

Still, Republican anxiety seems a bit overblown, at least at this stage. There are significant differences between Trump and the media problems cited by some analysts, and some potential upside — if Republican candidates can leverage Trump's bluster.

First, Trump is one candidate among many, and it's very early in a primary cycle that hasn't yet seen its first debate. We are still six months away from a binding vote. The candidates who created embarrassment for Republicans in 2010 and 2012 did so after winning nominations in the primaries. That allowed the media to portray them, with some justification, as endorsed representatives of the party as a whole.

The media can't make that argument with Trump. He has only been a Republican for a few years, and more to the point, Trump has never won office — as a Republican or anything else. He hasn't even run for office before now, although he has positioned himself for a presidential run since at least 1999, when he proclaimed himself "very pro-choice." In fact, Trump has shifted positions so often on so many issues — immigration included, from just three years ago — that there is some question whether Trump is representing himself honestly.

Other Republican candidates aren't taking the bait, either — not from Trump, and not from the media. During the earlier cycles, the media demanded that Republicans in other races around the country account for controversial comments made by some other candidate in some other place. This crop of presidential candidates appears to have learned from that experience, and are sticking to their own positions on immigration. Some have offered brief rebukes to Trump, but are mostly using the opportunity to highlight their own work. Rick Perry, for example, turned Trump's incendiary remarks into a review of his efforts to shore up the southern border despite a lack of cooperation from Washington.

Having Trump playing the reckless loudmouth might actually work in the GOP's favor. Trump allows all of the other candidates to appear more statesmanlike by comparison, even if the specific policies they favor closely mirror Trump's. It could, if handled deftly enough, show people that Republicans who have actual track records in the party provide rational leadership. It may not inspire the same voters that Trump does, but the contrast may well help the GOP make gains among independents and centrists in a general election. If nothing else, this will give the more serious candidates a good crucible for handling the media in a general election.

Trump may grate on Republican nerves, but he's in no position to damage anyone but himself. Rather than continue handwringing over his presence on the campaign trail, Republicans would do better to improve their standing among voters so that they no longer look to demagogues to get the attention of their party.