Please stop our four days of suffering. Each major political party should reduce their presidential nominating conventions to a day. The formal business could be accomplished in an hour or two. Place candidates in nomination, rush through the roll call, and spend the rest of the time shaking fists and caterwauling at repeated mentions of the other party’s nominee. Do in one day what they now repeat in four.
It could avoid needless trouble. A one day Republican convention of hollering about Hillary would have meant no time for the brilliant (do you know she speaks 5 languages?) Melania Trump to make a hash of her national political debut by plagiarizing an inspiring 2008 Michelle Obama convention speech on Monday night.
Two astonishing days of denials that an extended section of uplifting bromides came from the 2008 speech to the Democratic convention reminded millions of witnesses that the Trump campaign will not hesitate to disparage the truth if lies fit better into their delusions of perfection. When the campaign tried to draw a line under the controversy on day three of the convention, its explanation was that Melania Trump had suggested the passages to a corporate speech writer but apparently did not recognize them when they appeared in the speech that the candidate’s third wife claimed she’d written herself.
By Wednesday afternoon, the original purpose of the fortunate immigrant putting a kinder face on the snarling narcissist was a distant memory. The most vivid memory was the number of party soldiers who marched out in front of the press to insist, depending on the answer of the hour, there was no plagiarism, they were just similar words, these were common thoughts, it’s the media’s fault, Hillary Clinton always undermines strong women, and, finally, it was the fault of Melania’s groveling corporate Boswell.
The Democrats will be little better. Hillary Clinton surrogates in Cleveland to refute Republican claims through the week gave a preview of the excruciating theme Democrats will adopt in Philadelphia for their unpopular nominee. She is, they say with robotic consistency, the most qualified person ever to run for president.
Garnishing that absurd claim will tax the credibility of Democrats who insist on making the case for Clinton. Even the most relentless spinner will need to tread carefully around unhappy facts.
In 2000, the ambitious and humiliated first lady parachuted into New York to claim an open U.S. Senate seat as a reward for defending her heedless husband. Clinton embarked on a long “listening tour” that year as a substitute for sharing the ideas candidates familiar with their state traditionally offer. Clinton stumbled when she pledged to bring 200,000 jobs to the declining upstate New York economy. During the eight years she represented New York in the Senate, Clinton achieved nothing toward reaching that goal because she’s an unabashed ignoramus on how jobs are created in a free market.
A detail in a Quinnipiac survey released last week provided one inconvenient reminder of Hillary Clinton’s stark failure in her venture into economic development for anyone but herself. Zero upstate respondents to the poll said the upstate economy was “very good”. It is unusual to find not one person who is thriving in a region and thinks things are going just fine. Economic fluency and Hillary Clinton will be not be paired in any sentences exclaimed from the podium in Philadelphia.
Don’t mention national security. Everyone knows that. The Chappaqua server and trail of false explanations make that a bright no-go zone for Clinton convention witnesses. Foreign affairs are not an inviting topic for the former secretary of state’s boosters. ISIS refuses to play on the jayvee team President Obama consigned them to. The terrorist organization’s murderous reach grows. Libya, Clinton’s personal project, has the look of a failed state, inflicting misery on millions.
The Middle East is a mess. Our allies are drifting away. Israel has become a frequent target of the Obama administration’s feckless foreign policy. Millions have been forced to become refugees. Christians are slaughtered for their faith. Turkey, our stalwart ally for decades, is on the verge of becoming an Islamist dictatorship.
A tough terrain for Democrats. So they will unleash their most potent weapon: Donald Trump quotes. Howls will follow and the nation will shiver at its choice.
