The 2016 Republican National Convention is in the books. Here are a few brief thoughts about the convention from a first-time attendee:
Unique convention
Modern conventions have become highly scripted affairs. Gone are the days of the 1960s and 1970s when conventions began with their nominees in doubt. The “news” typically turns out to be what everyone expected to happen (save for the bizarre Clint Eastwood speech in 2012).
Relative to recent conventions, this was one for the history books. Between the Monday roll call vote debate, Melania Trump’s plagiarism and Ted Cruz getting booed, there was plenty of excitement. In a way, a newsworthy convention should have been expected from one that nominated Donald Trump, but this exceeded expectations in terms of commotion.
Peace
For all the violence and chaos that’s happened at Trump rallies over the past year, everyone came into the convention expecting violent protests and maybe even a terrorist attack. What we got instead was more like this: bubbles.
This pretty much sums up the protest situation where we are right now #RNCinCLE pic.twitter.com/y9aJPdbtE1
— Steven D’Souza (@cbcsteve) July 21, 2016
It was a shockingly peaceful convention, at least outside the arguments inside the convention arena. The reports of police randomly getting stabbed with needles turned out not to be true. Same with the report that a single shot had been fired at a police transport vehicle.
One afternoon I was walking down Euclid Avenue and there was a loud pop. I knew it was louder than a gunshot and didn’t see any explosion, so I didn’t panic. But a street vendor went to hide, and a line of police slowly started to swarm around one car. When bystanders saw that, they crowded behind the police with their phone cameras rolling.
Turned out it was just a car tire that popped. But it would have been easy for someone to tweet, “EXPLOSION IN CLEVELAND,” and start a hysteria.
It’s easy for initial reports to get blown way out of proportion. In Cleveland, even the relatively tame stuff that was reported to happen ended up not being true.
Cleveland
Cleveland doesn’t exactly have a good reputation. It gets branded as a city that doesn’t offer much to do. But Cleveland did a fantastic job hosting the convention. It’s not an amazing tourist city, but if you’re here anyway there are enough things to do to keep you occupied and happy.
Attendees will walk away from the convention with an inflated sense of Cleveland thanks to four days of great weather. (Michael Barone told me no convention has had weather this great since the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago.)
I’m not about to go out of my way to come back to Cleveland. But I know if I had to come back for work or was driving through, there are good places to eat and things to see to make the time worthwhile.
Jason Russell is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
