Well, the Democrats wrapped up their virtual national convention last Thursday evening with the much anticipated acceptance speech by former vice president Joe Biden. Not unexpectedly, the mainstream press commentators gave the speech rave reviews. In my opinion, he did avoid making any obvious gaffes, but he was after all, reading from a teleprompter .
That’s really not a very hard thing to do. President Trump has a tendency when doing a teleprompter speech, to leave the script multiple times and riff about anything he wants (that’s typically when he gets into trouble.) Biden stuck to the script – that somebody else had written.
Other than Biden‘s speech on the last evening, the Democrats’ convention seemed like four nights of painting a picture of just how bad America is, and oh yeah, how truly terrible President Trump is too.
What Democrats at the convention did not do, is focus much attention on their own policies. And what’s in their own platform. Why? Because their policies are way to the left of where most Americans are. Tax hikes. Open borders. Abolishing ICE. Defunding the police (or as some Democrats are saying nowadays, re-imagining the police (whatever that means.) Abortion on demand. The Green New Deal. And on and on.
If the election this year is about that agenda, Joe Biden and the Democrats will lose. Because that’s not where the majority of the American people are.
So we are now at the midpoint of the Republican virtual convention. Two nights down – two nights to go. How’s it going?
I think the convention thus far has been very effective in conveying a message of why President Trump should be re-elected to a second term, and why the policies that have now been adopted by Joe Biden would be a disaster for America. The highlighted speakers in the first night, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, and Donald Trump, Jr., all delivered very effective speeches, Senator Scott and Ambassador Haley in particular. But it was earlier in the evening, when unfortunately not as many people were watching, since the networks don’t air the convention until 10 PM, that I thought some of the most effective speeches were given.
Particularly effective were the following. Football legend Herschel Walker, who says he was raised a Democrat, but has considered Donald Trump a friend for 37 years, said “this president has done almost everything he said that he was going to do, and that counts.”
Maximo Alvarez “I may be Cuban-born, but I am 100% American… I choose President Trump because I choose America, I choose freedom.”
And Georgia Democratic state senator Vernon Jones said “the Democratic Party has become infected with the pandemic of intolerance, bigotry, socialism, anti-law-enforcement bias and a dangerous tolerance for people who attack others, destroy property and terrorize our own communities.” Powerful stuff.
Last night, the featured speakers during prime time were President Trump’s son Eric, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and First Lady Melania Trump. All their speeches in my opinion, were excellent. And since it was prime time, all the major networks covered them. But as was the case in the first evening, it was a number of speeches given by less well-known people, not in prime time, which really stood out to me.
The police officer who came across a pregnant woman about to take heroin, who ended up adopting that baby. The Wisconsin small businessman who was terrified that if Joe Biden was elected, the $4 trillion tax hike Biden has proposed would devastate the economy and his small business. The former Planned Parenthood abortion clinic director who had a complete change of heart when she actually witnessed an abortion, and praised Donald Trump as the most pro-life president in history. The late Billy Graham‘s granddaughter who marveled that abortion clinics and marijuana shops were deemed essential and allowed to remain open, when churches could not hold services during the COVID shutdown. The Democratic mayor of Eveleth, Minnesota who said radical environmentalists have dragged the Democratic Party so far to the left with things like “the job-killing disgrace called the Green New Deal,” that he is supporting President Trump and encourages other Democrats to do the same. And Nicholas Sandmann, the Covington Catholic high school student who during the annual March for Life rally in Washington DC had a drum shoved into his face and a breathless mainstream press blaming him, because he had a MAGA hat on.
The bottom line is, I am very encouraged at this midpoint in the 2020 virtual Republican National Convention. It will be interesting to see if President Trump gets a significant bounce from the convention. I believe he will. And I believe the race for the White House will narrow significantly.
See you next week.