Major American political parties are stable institutions. “I know there was a lot of criticism about her speech, but I thought it was great”, said Ms. Woods, a designer from Beverly Hills.
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Much has been made of the many senators, erstwhile former GOP White House candidates, former presidents, and Republican Party elders, including the entire Bush family, who have stayed away from Cleveland this week.
The convergence of campaign and party “has been seamless”, he claimed.
Oklahoma congressman Tom Cole said “it would be terrific” if Mr. Trump had a broader message, but taking it further may strain his identity. He points to the history of Log Cabin choosing to endorse political candidates who opposed LGBT rights in the past, accusing the group of “providing cover” for anti-LGBT Republicans.
But Chris Howard of Ballwin, who sits on the Republican state committee, speculates that Trump appealed even more to those who watched him on television. “I am proud to be a Republican”.
“His rhetoric, his principles, his policies – to the degree that he ever talks about them – are simply not in line with my own”, said Hoff.
If Mr. Trump does prevail, he may play the role of Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 and Ronald Reagan in 1980: transforming the demographic profile of their respective parties.
Trump is attempting to pull at the edges of the Democratic coalition. The difference in 2016 is that these new Republicans possess anger and alienation of a sharply different character than the rump of the party they are joining.
But there has been no effort to reach out beyond the party’s base, especially given a platform reiterating traditionally conservative positions opposing abortion rights and same-sex marriage while adding support for some Trump stances like building a wall to block illegal immigration.
Essentially, it’s a meeting of the “Establishment” brain trust to pick up the pieces of the Republican Party after what they anticipate to be a crushing Trump defeat. “I really don’t see it that way”.
“Overall, I think he spoke to all the things that have frustrated your average American – jobs and safety, ” Howard said.
“I loved how he said ‘we’re going to do this together, ‘ ” said delegate Sara Walsh, of Ashland, Mo.
Still, some research suggests that party platforms do matter: People form their opinions about the party based on what the platform includes.
“At the end of the day, does Mike Pence excite me?”
There was the brouhaha on the floor Monday when nine states tried to force a recorded vote on the convention’s rules – a last gasp by “Never Trump” folks to open the door to a different candidate. The conservatives liked the first two words, the regulars the last two.
The Republican platform also called for a commission, similar to one in the Reagan presidency to study the feasibility of a “metallic basis for the currency”. But more likely than not, these will be the tenets of the Grand Old Party for the next four years. (2008) or Richard Cheney (2000).
President Obama had a 3-to-1 edge on Mitt Romney among this voting bloc in 2012. Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal, said only Trump was being honest about how “fake culture wars” distract from America’s economic decline.
Trump, unlike too many Republicans, at least saw that the party’s existing message seemed at best irrelevant to a lot of voters’ concerns.
Salm, who had originally flirted with supporting both Marco Rubio and John Kasich, quickly changed his mind after meeting the business mogul and presidential nominee.
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Meanwhile, Tony Schwartz, the man who ghostwrote Trump’s biography The Art of the Deal, said in the July 25 New Yorker magazine that “Lying is second-nature” to Trump and that Trump has an “absolute lack of interest in anything beyond power and money”.
