Against All Odds, the First Night of the Republican National Convention Is… Good? By Jim Geraghty
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/republican-convention-strong-opening-night/
The first night of the Republican convention was . . . go figure, pretty good!
Who would have been surprised if this whole thing had turned into a mess? The Republicans had already changed venues twice, the limitations of holding a big event during a contagious pandemic are considerable, the GOP can’t count on many Hollywood celebrities or musical numbers, the polling looks grim, and last week’s Democratic convention had generally gotten good reviews.
Trump’s circle chat with the released hostages was . . . human and empathetic, by his standards. I could have done without the president telling American pastor Andrew Brunson, “to me, [Turkish president] President Edrogan was very good.” Our old friend Christian Schneider observed, “the worst spokesman for Donald Trump is Donald Trump.”
The night had some off-key notes. Someone should have told Kimberly Guilfoyle that she had a microphone, and that she didn’t need to shout her entire speech so that the viewers at home could hear it. I’m not sure Mark and Patricia McCloskey added anything that any one of thousands of armed citizens who exercised their right to self-defense couldn’t have added better and less controversially.
Overall, a surprisingly strong start — and now Republicans eagerly await the ratings. If people at home were watching . . . maybe Trump will get a nice polling bump out of this week and the dynamic of this race will change. Or, maybe Americans are tired of politics and don’t want to watch any more on a late summer night.
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