Dems will counterprogram GOP convention

The re-election campaign for President Donald Trump blitzed social media and streaming services last week with a $10 million ad buy to counterprogram the four-day Democratic National Convention.

On Monday, when the Republicans kick off their four-day national convention, Democrats will look to push back.

The Democratic counterprogramming will include TV and digital ads released nationally and in key battleground states hitting Trump over his handling of the novel coronavirus pandemic and other issues.

There will be a host of briefings led by prominent Democratic Party leaders, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, former presidential candidates Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey and former South Bend, Indiana, mayor Pete Buttigieg.

The party plans to hold virtual events across key battleground states.

Throughout the Democratic convention, Trump made in-person campaign appearances in swing states, including to Pennsylvania and Biden’s hometown of Scranton on the same day that Biden accepted the nomination.

Biden’s campaign declined to say whether he or his running mate, Senator Kamala Harris of California, will have any visible role during the GOP convention.

Democratic Party Chairman Tom Perez outlined his party’s counterprogramming focus when he told reporters in a call Friday that the Republican National Convention will be marked by “chaos, chaos, chaos”.

The Democratic National Committee’s war room said Friday in a statement that their effort will serve “to remind Americans that Trump has really only delivered on one thing — a Chaos Presidency”.

Democratic campaign officials said the counterprogramming will echo what top Democrats argued during their convention. Former president Bill Clinton said that the White House is defined by chaos and former first lady Michelle Obama said when voters look to Trump for “any semblance of steadiness,” they get “chaos, division and a total and utter lack of empathy”.

“He’ll do what he always does — lie, scare, distract, divide and make next week all about himself,” Perez said.

To counter what they expect will be a flurry of misinformation from the president and his supporters, Democrats will use researchers to factcheck speakers, including Trump.

On Monday, the Democrats’ theme will be “Families in Crisis” and focus on child care, education and care for senior citizens. On Tuesday, it will be the economy, and on Wednesday, Democrats will center on the COVID-19 pandemic and what they call Trump’s failed response.

On Thursday, when Trump will accept his party’s renomination in a speech from the South Lawn of the White House, Democrats will present the theme “Country in Crisis” and compare his four years in office to the kind of leadership Biden and Harris have promised.

During their convention, Democrats painted Trump as a threat to democracy, and Trump will counter with a similar message about Biden.

“The future of our country, and indeed our civilization, is at stake on Nov 3,” Trump said Friday, arguing that a victory by “the radical left” would spell permanent destruction.

“I’m the only thing standing between the American Dream and total anarchy, madness and chaos,” Trump said Friday during a speech to a gathering of conservative activists, the Council for National Policy, in Arlington, Virginia.

Due to COVID-19, Republicans, like the Democrats, have had to make significant changes to their convention.

The Republican convention, like its Democratic counterpart, will be mostly virtual to avoid large crowds amid the pandemic, though 336 delegates — six from each state and territory — will gather Monday for proceedings in Charlotte, North Carolina. The event will also be online.

The party initially planned to hold the entire convention in Charlotte, but when the state’s Democratic governor couldn’t guarantee Trump that he would allow the kind of arena crowds the president wanted, in early June the party moved major convention events to Jacksonville, Florida.

But a spike in infections in Florida forced Trump to cancel the Jacksonville events. Trump agreed to hold a much smaller convention based in Charlotte.

Trump will go to Mills River, North Carolina, on Monday with daughter Ivanka to observe a program that gives out boxes of food and fresh produce to people struggling during the pandemic’s economic downturn.

Later Monday, he is expected to go to Charlotte to make an appearance on the first night. Trump will play a major role every night of the convention, said a senior campaign official.

The official business of the Republican convention, including the nomination process, will take place in Charlotte, with speakers appearing remotely from across the country, as the Democrats did.

Speakers are expected to include former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, Senators Tim Scott of South Carolina and Joni Ernst of Iowa, and Patricia and Mark McCloskey, the St. Louis couple who went viral for wielding guns from their front yard at Black Lives Matter protesters in June and have since been charged with felony weapons counts.