Showman Trump will be hard act to follow
Hillary must acknowledge public’s anger while stripping Trump of his credibility.
Amidst a barrage of reporting on the Munich shopping mall attack, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker tweeted ‘‘Kaine is Able!!!’’
He was referring to his rival in the Democratic Vice Presidential stakes, Tim Kaine, who just minutes before had been named by Clinton as her running mate.
Kaine is a former Mayor, Governor, and current Virginia Senator. He is Clinton’s signal to voters that her answer to the antiestablishment crusade of the ultimate outsider, her rival Donald Trump, is to double down on credentials, experience, and public service.
Until that moment, it had been Trump’s week. Just one night before, he addressed a live and television audience of 32 million as he formally
A campaign official said Clinton was impressed with Kaine’s downto-earth style when she campaigned with him in Virginia last accepted the Republican Party’s nomination for President. It was the piece de resistance of the four-day Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio. A fiery but relatively restrained Trump spent over an hour ruminating on the threats to Americans – immigration, terrorism, violent crime. He promised hardline solutions. And he declared himself the only person who can free Americans from a rigged system that is kept in place by media and political elites.
The Trump campaign had indicated that he would be modelling his convention speech on Richard Nixon’s 1968 address to the RNC. Set against great unrest of the civil rights era, the Vietnam War and the Cold War, Nixon unabashedly appealed to those Americans who were not struggling for racial equality. Those who were tired of liberals, protests, tired of violence in the streets and on university campuses, and who craved ‘‘law and order’’. And on Thursday night, Trump delivered, speaking directly to American fear.
Republicans, Americans, and the world this week witnessed Trumpism in action. It was good. It was bad. It was ugly.
The good:
We witnessed heartfelt speeches bearing witness to the human side of Trump from his adult children, Donald Jr., Eric, and Tiffany. Daughter week. Afterwards, Kaine went back to her house in Washington, DC, for a 90-minute evening meeting.
Two days later, Kaine and his Ivanka stole the show on Thursday night, poised and relatable despite her privileged upbringing. Her direct appeal to the women voters Trump has so needlessly marginalised provided a warm and bright moment in Trump’s RNC. Another positive for Trump was the fact that he managed to stifle the Never Trump uprising and unite Republican delegates over his candidacy. Those forces are still in play, but they now work to be recognised in the days and months ahead for their stand against Trumpism rather than to deny him the top of the ticket.
The bad:
In a word, speechgate. During Melania Trump’s beautifully delivered speech on Monday night, an unemployed journalist watching from a Starbucks in L.A. realised, then tweeted, that entire paragraphs of Mrs. Trump’s speech had been lifted from Michelle Obama’s 2008 Democratic National Convention speech. It happened because the Trump campaign is run by a skeleton staff. It blew up for the same reason. Rather than acknowledge the error and put the controversy to rest, Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort twisted himself into a pretzel for days, denying that the paragraphs were lifted. All questions were put to rest on Wednesday, when the actual speechwriter, Meredith McIver, took public responsibility for the gaffe. wife, Anne, joined Clinton in New York for lunch, along with Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, daughter Chelsea
The ugly:
There were falsehoods, big and small. The small falsehoods swirled around non-primetime speakers like the NRA’s Chris Cox, who delivered an oft-repeated line that Hillary Clinton wants to abolish the Second Amendment right to bear arms. The biggest falsehoods were reserved for Trump’s acceptance speech, which and Chelsea’s husband. Kaine was the only vice-presidential candidate to have a private family lunch during the vetting process, the promised that his campaign ‘‘will honour the American people with the truth, and nothing else’’. His speech was leaked five hours early (see skeleton staff, above), and thoroughly fact-checked by the time he delivered it. His claims about Obama’s rollback of criminal enforcement, incoming waves of immigrant families, Clinton’s private server ‘‘crimes,’’ rising police fatalities, inadequate screening of refugees, Hispanic poverty, and Clinton’s responsibility for unrest in the Middle East, among many others, were widely discredited as soon as he made them.
And then there was Ted Cruz, who had a speaking slot but would not endorse Trump. The feud spilled out into the media through Friday, sabotaging what should have been Trump’s post-convention high.
And now we turn towards Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Convention, kicking off in Philadelphia on Tuesday (NZT). With the opportunity to positively dominate the news cycle for a week, Clinton’s task will be to acknowledge the anger in the electorate, and to articulate her vision for America. Republicans have done an outstanding job over the years of reducing Clinton to a caricature. She has an opportunity next week to show America who she really is. She wastes that opportunity to her great political peril. official said.
Kaine’s first appearance with Clinton would be today at an event in Miami, a campaign aide said.