Cleveland
I’ve been attending Republican conventions since 1988. As of the Wednesday morning of these conventions, none has ever seemed more messed-up, more poorly managed, and more generally headed to disaster than that 1988 one, my first, in New Orleans. The Reagan-Bush handoff on Monday had been awkward. The rollout of the Dan Quayle vice presidential pick on Tuesday had been disastrous. Vice President Bush had entered the convention trailing Mike Dukakis in the polls. On Wednesday it seemed to almost everyone that he was very unlikely to get the bounce from the convention he needed.
He got it. Why? Because Dan Quayle gave a good speech Wednesday night, and, far more important, Bush gave a very good one Thursday night. The fact is that the presidential nominee’s speech dwarfs everything else at the convention in impact. It’s almost always the main thing, often the only thing, people remember. It’s what makes a difference, if anything does.
And this is why, much as it pains me to say it, and much as the conventional wisdom that the convention has been a clown show so far is correct, Donald Trump could end up with a successful week in Cleveland. Mike Pence, aided by the best Republican speechwriting team around, John McConnell and Matthew Scully, will probably give a good speech tonight. And then it’s a good bet that Donald Trump, working with the talented Reagan director of speechwriting, Ben Elliott, will almost undoubtedly exceed (low) expectations Thursday night. There won’t be obvious plagiarism or explicit idiocy. There will even be some good turns of phrase. The media, despite its hostility to Trump, won’t be able to avoid praising him for exceeding a low bar. Many Republicans, desperate to rationalize supporting their party’s nominee, will decide that this speech is the “pivot” they needed to justify capitulating. Trump will emerge with momentum, and quite possibly the lead in polls.
That’s my sense of where this going. And much as I loathe the thought of a Trump presidency, it will be fun (at least for a brief while) to watch the elite freak out over the prospect of such a presidency, when, by next weekend, it suddenly looks quite possible.
