Grim. Gloomy. Depressing. Those were some of the words Republican campaign professionals used to describe the Democratic National Convention, which culminated in former Vice President Joe Biden delivering his acceptance speech as the party’s presidential nominee on Thursday night.
Asked how next week’s GOP convention renominating President Trump will differ, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel told Fox News, “It will be more aspirational, less grim, less attacking, more of a greatness of America and what we are.”
“The Democrat Party has spent their entire convention shaming Americans for wanting to achieve greatness and pushing lectures from out-of-touch, failed Washington bureaucrats,” said Kimberly Guilfoyle, a top Trump surrogate, in a campaign video.
Democrats counter that the somber tone of the convention was the inevitable result of the state of the country under President Trump. They claimed that his mismanagement of the pandemic, which they blame for a U.S. death toll of 170,000 and cratering economy, made it impossible for them to hold a normal, live convention as opposed to the mostly virtual event that took place over the last four days.
“The current president has cloaked America in darkness for too long,” Biden said in his speech accepting the nomination, in which he tried to strike a generally hopeful tone.
“Would you rehire or work for someone who ran your business into the ground?” former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg asked small-business owners on Thursday night. “Whose reckless decisions put you in danger? And who spends more time tweeting than working? If the answer is no, why the hell would we ever rehire Donald Trump for another 4 years?” Barack and Michelle Obama implied in their speeches that Trump’s reelection would endanger American democracy.
“Over the past week, Democrats highlighted President Trump’s shortcomings as the nation’s chief executive, and they made the case that Joe Biden is of good character, but they never communicated to the American people how a Joe Biden presidency will improve their lives in the here and now beyond empty platitudes,” said Republican strategist Ford O’Connell. “It was almost as if Biden and company believe he is running for student body president and not president of the United States of America.”
Still, Democrats tried to pull the gloom and doom back ahead of Biden’s acceptance speech. They mixed inspirational stories with comedians, featuring actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus, a one-time Seinfeld star, as emcee. Biden was introduced by his children, including a video of his late son Beau.
“Democrats have been closely focused during this convention on Trump, both in presenting their negative attacks and pushing the contrast when they talk about how Biden intends to be different,” said Republican strategist Christian Ferry. “I expected it would continue tonight.”
The Trump campaign and RNC constantly blasted out statements pointing out differences between Biden and convention speakers, especially those who ran against the former vice president in the presidential primaries this year. Cory Booker, the New Jersey senator, was quoted calling Biden the “architect of mass incarceration” and questioning his mental acuity. Pete Buttigieg, the former South Bend, Indiana, mayor, said that by voting for the Iraq War, Biden “supported the worst foreign policy decision made by the United States in my lifetime.”
Republicans nevertheless have no illusions about the campaign ahead. Trump’s favorability ratings have never been high. The coronavirus, the economic downturn, and the civil unrest that followed George Floyd’s death have further depressed those numbers. Over four days, Democrats portrayed Trump as a self-absorbed failure who coddles dictators, refuses to accept responsibility, and has ignored the pandemic, presenting Biden as a competent and empathetic alternative. “It didn’t have to be this bad,” Biden said.
Yet Republicans also see the 77-year-old Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris, as flawed candidates at the helm of an increasingly radical party. They hope these facts make possible the second Trump upset in four years.
“By accepting his party’s nomination tonight, Joe Biden has formally become a pawn of the radical leftists,” said Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh in a statement. “His name is on the campaign logo, but the ideas come from the socialist extremists.”
“We are in a global pandemic, Americans are starving, and they are hurting. All Biden and the Democrats had to do was provide a basic road map to success for America under a President Biden, and they failed dreadfully on that account similar to Michael Dukakis and John Kerry,” O’Connell said. “There is no question about it, President Trump has an uphill climb to win reelection, but, ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Democrat Party of 2020 and Joe Biden.”
