“Donald Trump will be Donald Trump”, he said.
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Whether this year’s confab meets that benchmark remains to be seen. “I hope it doesn’t happen, but that’s kind of my expectation”, added Stinemetz, who is among a minority of delegates who want to open the convention to nominate a candidate other than Trump.
Donald Trump has the nomination for president. The top figures in the party gather to showcase their nominees, and the prime-time speeches given by the candidates and other prominent politicians garner some of the largest television audiences of the campaign.
“What we’re going to offer is a different vision, a different way forward, a different set of excitement that’s never been seen at a political convention before”, Sean Spicer, the RNC’s chief strategist on CNN’s “New Day” on Friday. Then he has to convince them that he can evolve from the bully of the Republican primaries to fill the exacting demands of the presidency. There is a sense of anxiety on the streets outside Quicken Loans Arena, where the Republican National Convention will be this week.
Murphy is making his first trip to a national convention as a delegate, an honor he anticipated to get when he first asked about going back in January. The convention is set to be more of an acoustic set. They represent the 50 states, plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and US territories.
GOP Sens. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Mark Kirk of IL and John McCain of Arizona – all on November’s ballot – are bowing out. An estimated 30 million people watched 2012 nominee Mitt Romney address the convention four years ago. They haven’t seen him up close and personal. Observers are hopeful there won’t be confrontations anywhere near the level that erupted at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago, but any conflict between protesters and police – or between Trump’s supporters and his critics – will bring in viewers.
Anticipating that there would be scores of protests in various parts of the city, during which they expect that a number of people would be arrested, all pending municipal court cases have been suspended to make way for near round-the-clock arraignments of protesters. Ron Johnson, R-Wis.; Chris Cox, executive director, NRA Institute for Legislative Action; golfer Natalie Gulbis; Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis.; House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.; New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
That means projecting a steadier picture of his character, temperament and intellect to win over voters who may have decided that they could never vote for Clinton but remain concerned about his suitability to be President. And even when reading off prepared notes, as he did when he introduced his running mate, Indiana Governor Mike Pence, Saturday, Trump has a penchant for going off script.
The 2016 Republican convention will also feature a more unorthodox speakers’ list than usual.
Republicans have struggled to put together an impressive roster of nonpoliticians. Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, who leads the congregation that Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, attends, was scheduled to appear but backed out. Soap operas get their nods in the form of actor and former Calvin Klein underwear model Antonio Sabato Jr. and Kimberlin Brown, a California avocado farmer best known for her roles on “The Bold and the Beautiful” and “The Young and the Restless”.
Finalizing the rules for the convention is critical this year, because of the long-simmering threat by anti-Trump delegates to try to oust him at the convention.
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“I’ll just have to agree to disagree with people that passionately believe we need to overthrow him”. Still, social conservatives and others were spending the weekend strategizing. Party officials have come to rue Trump’s capacity for unforced verbal miscues and digressions leaving them less than confident that he can make it through the week without a misstep. But even the most carefully stage-managed events have run into problems.
