Two observations on the convention’s first day:

(1) There’s not as much dissension in this 41st Republican National Convention as some accounts suggest. Yes, there are certainly people unhappy with the way the convention managers squashed the move for a roll call vote on the Rules Committee report. They might have allowed a roll call vote, which would have produced some afternoon footage of delegation chairmen making anti-Trump mini-speeches. And while Paul Manafort’s operation was adept at getting a sufficient number of signers of petitions to force a roll call to withdraw their signatures, the execution on the podium was ragged. “I wouldn’t have walked away from the podium,” 2008 Republican National Chairman Mike Duncan told me, as presiding officer Arkansas Rep. Steve Womack did. And in an out-in-the-hall interview, Womack, who is often called on to preside over the House on difficult roll calls, told me that organizers made “a tactical mistake” by not instructing him to announce when the motion first came up that enough signatures had been withdrawn to void the demand for a roll call. Only after he ruled that the ayes had prevailed in a voice vote (which seemed to me, sitting high in the gallery, to be correct) and recognized Utah Sen. Mike Lee who demanded a roll call, did he decide on his own to announce that the RNC secretary had ruled that there weren’t enough signatures to demand a roll call.