Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Day 2 of GOP Convention, in 5 bullet points

Tonight, it seems that nothing went as planned. In other words, it sure looked a lot like a Donald J Trump convention. No big gaffes like last night's plagiarism + rickroll, but it was nonetheless probably a disaster when measured against the RNC's goals.
  • The first half of the day was delegate counting day, leading to the official party nomination. Utah and Alaska had contentious moments when the RNC chair overruled Utah's chair who'd announced 40 delegates for Cruz, while Alaska called for a recount of its votes as had been announced by the RNC chair, only to have its votes switched all to Donald. Ohio was mad as hell yesterday; will Ohio, Utah and Alaska Republicans choose to stay at home?
  • Just how unpopular is the RNC Establishment? Mitch McConnell got boos all three times his name was mentioned. His own speech drew very few cheers, even as he attacked Hillary and Obama. When Reince Priebus spoke to the crowd about the rules, he pretty much was ignored.
  • It was supposed to be about 'Make America Work Again', but rather than making the case for GOP policies, most of the speakers talked either about their personal priorities or about Hillary. Donald's name was barely mentioned. 
    • Chris Christie talked about how he'd prosecute Hillary if he's made Attorney General;
    • Ben Carson tried to link Saul Alinsky and Lucifer to Hillary;
    • Mike Mukasey talked about Hillary's crimes (which by the way, maybe people forgot that AG Mukasey defended the use of waterboarding).
  • Thus, instead of establishing the case for Donald through the theme of, 'Make America Work Again', the clear message from the Republican Party was, 'You have to pick our guy because Hillary'. That's an attempt to solidify the base as opposed to expanding the base. The GOP are in big trouble and their actions reflect so.
  • The RNC really didn't want the press to comment on tonight's events. They turned up the volume of music between speakers so high, that all of the news outlets had difficulty hearing each other and speaking.

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