28 July 2016
An Unconventional Convention
by J.R.Thomas
Mr Trump’s reputation for slick presentation took a bit of a dive in Cleveland last week. Given that Donald proclaims one of his great business assets as the value of the Trump name, it seemed a strangely unplanned and badly rehearsed launch for the forthcoming Trump presidential campaign.
There was the unforgiveable – Mrs Trump making a speech of which, no question, parts had been lifted from Mrs Obama’s speech at the Democrat Convention eight years ago. What on earth was that about? If you are going to plagiarise somebody’s work, at least make the source an obscure one – not something from a well-remembered recent occasion – so well remembered that several observers began mouthing the words as Mrs Trump delivered them. There is no question that Mrs T did not do this – indeed, there is no question that Mrs T did not write the speech for one thing. So who did it? Some disaffected staffer? (In which case watch for more departures from the Trump team shortly). Or was it a draft waiting polishing, which somehow slipping into Mrs Trump’s folder? Madder things have happened.
There was the ugly – as when, in the first day or so of the convention, the diehard party members shouted “Never Trump” they were menaced, shouted and whistled down, their banners ripped in scenes which did not look good on TV, or in the convention hall. Understandable maybe if some activists had done this spontaneously, but this was urged on by the leadership in the hall. Much much better to shrug shoulders and think of a few good jokes to make the protestors look like sore losers. Not Donald’s style though.
There was the sloppy – allowing Ted Cruz to make a speech which lambasted Trump for the nature of his campaign and his personal attacks on Ted’s family. Perhaps not unexpected, but sloppy to give your opponent a platform, and double sloppy in that Ted had submitted a copy of his speech for prior approval. If he had then delivered something other than what he had submitted, one would have sympathy for Mr Trump’s team. But Ted was speaking to exactly the submitted text. So had anybody read it? Had the Donald been shown it? Is there somebody in the Trump tent who is facing inward when he is supposed to be facing outward? Or did Mr Trump think the derision and booing heaped on Ted would do him more harm than the speech would do to Donald? If so, that was a serious miscalculation; Mr Cruz emerged rather as brave and principled, an angry man defending his family.
Then there was the slightly chilling – Mr Trump’s suggestion that he would not allow American troops to participate in NATO actions if attacked by Russia unless that clearly accords with American interests undermines the whole principle of NATO, which regards an attack on any member as an attack on all. It certainly went down very badly in those countries which have Mr Putin as a neighbour. Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO Secretary-General, spoke out to express concern at this, though perhaps he should have kept quiet at this time, taking note of what effect his counterpart in the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, had on the Brexit referendum with his interventions.
The obvious failure to swing the party behind him, which many commentators pointed up – no Bush representation, no John Kasich or Mitt Romney; Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House delivering a speech which was subtly an attack on Trumpian values and so weakly endorsed Donald that it only mentioned his name twice – was maybe more excusable, at least from the Donald’s point of view. The last thing he wants is a bunch of people who he sees as responsible for the mess the USA is in giving him enthusiastic endorsements. Nevertheless, Mr Trump needs to get the vote out in November, and to do that he needs many people in the party, who may not be Trump supporters but are loyal Republicans, to work very hard on his behalf. Some of those must be thinking that if the Bush family won’t turn out, if half the Republican establishment is not at the convention, then maybe they should use the autumn to watch all those TV box sets they have never got round to viewing.
In spite of all the recent attacks on Donald’s business practices, he is, this column would argue, a reasonably successful entrepreneur, at least in the real estate field. He has built and lost and then rebuilt a very large business, and even if he exaggerates his wealth and success, he has done well commercially. But the skills that made him successful in real estate are not really those that a politician needs. It is one thing to have a feel for what the voters might be feeling in their hearts, which Mr Trump has, and it is another to articulate that feeling and turn it into votes, as Donald has done. But what Mr Trump seems unable to do is to take that further step that turns the ability to capture a nomination into a sure-fire ability to win an election. Political parties in the USA are great coalitions of interests. That does not mean that the leader of a party should compromise his beliefs, but it does mean that he should persuade others that their long-term best interests would be best served by going along with the mood of the times and his, perhaps controversial, game plan. But if you just keep upsetting people, metaphorically standing on their toes, making the fringe of your supporters feel that at least for the time being they would feel more comfortable with the opposition in power, you will really struggle to win an election. If the Donald was not facing Mrs Clinton as his opponent, one might cynically say, he would have no chance. But as it is the lady, and if he can put on a kinder face, and engender more competent administration behind the scenes, then he might yet be a serious contender in November. Maybe this rumbustious convention will be a wake-up call as to where he goes next.
Which brings us very briefly to the lady herself. She too has her problems – she and Donald share the remarkable record of being the most disliked candidates ever to run for the Presidency. And Hillary has a lot of history which will never quite go away; and an opponent in Bernie Sanders who is an adept operator and very popular in the party and still on her case. Mrs Clinton has picked as her Vice Presidential running mate, Tim Kaine, Senator for Virginia, a Spanish speaking mainstreamer from a blue collar background, a classic safe pair of hands. But he is very akin to Hillary in his views and style and his appointment is not doing much to pull in Sanders supporters, who wanted somebody more left wing.
It was expected that the Democratic convention this week would be the well managed glorious uniting coronation that these things have become (alas for the days when the nomination was fought on the floors of the convention). But it has got off to a bad start. Somebody has hacked into the email system of the Democratic National Committee and supplied thousands of emails to WikiLeaks. Who have done what WikiLeaks does (the clue is in the name). Twenty thousand are already released and a lot more are supposedly on their way. And very entertaining they are, with all sorts of rude remarks about Mrs Clinton’s opponents and suggestions as to how Mrs C might win better. All well and good you might think. But the DNC is supposed to be unaligned to any candidate, merely monitoring and providing guidance and resource to all. It is pretty clear already that in fact it has been mostly a support system for the Clinton candidacy. It is doubtful this will do any harm to the lady, though noises from the DNC suggest there may be much more juicy stuff to come. Do you remember when Bernie Sanders said that the system was turned against him, and Donald Trump said the Democrat selection process was rigged? They both turn out to be right.
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