Republicans scramble to finalize convention plans
WASHINGTON – The Republican National Convention is about to open, but as of Saturday, planners had yet to provide a final schedule or other key details about what will take place during the gathering that will culminate in the nomination of President Donald Trump for a second term.
Officials confirmed the identities of a dozen or so convention speakers, but not when they will speak, where they will be or what they will discuss.
Convention planners haven’t announced officially that Trump was to give his acceptance speech from the White House, though the president confirmed it.
Even aides to the Senate’s top Republican, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, seemed confused about whether he would have a convention speaking role. McConnell’s reelection campaign said Thursday he will be campaigning in his home state and will not speak at the event.
Hours later, a campaign source said there had been “a miscommunication” and that McConnell will submit taped remarks.
McConnell’s off-again, on-again appearance at the convention underscores the chaotic nature of the short-term planning for a complex event that has been moved from two cites in two months under the shadow of the pandemic, officials said.
“The airplane has been put together in mid-air, and it is much less organized than normal,” said Dan Eberhart, an energy company executive and GOP donor who is familiar with the convention planning.
But the convention is happening, ready or not, concluding a 21⁄2-month scramble that involves constantly changing venues and ever-changing schedules over four nights of programming.
There are many reasons for seeming chaos, officials said, including Trump’s insistence on approving most decisions and the egos of people who want prime-time speaking slots.
“You’ve got many senior Republicans who have higher approval ratings than Trump, and so that’s playing into who wants to be seen at the convention and who doesn’t,” Eberhart said.
The event, which opens Monday and closes Thursday with Trump’s acceptance speech from the White House, will be a far cry from the glitz of conventions past.
The convention is expected to be mostly virtual, although small crowds are expected at some events.
Convention-type activities began Friday in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Republican National Committee was holding a series of meetings throughout the weekend devoted to rules, the platform and other party business. The RNC meeting on Monday is to nominate Trump for reelection.
The Republican National Committee did not respond to requests for details about convention programming.
Democrats held their four-day convention last week, switching to a virtual gathering after concerns about the coronavirus prompted them to scrap plans for a traditional celebration in Milwaukee.
Though there were a few glitches, planners managed to pull off the firstof-its-kind convention without any major technical problems, with Joe Biden accepting his party’s presidential nomination from his hometown in Wilmington, Delaware.
Republicans, who watched closely to see what worked and what didn’t, are expected to sharpen their attacks against Biden.
“I think we’re going to see a full-out assault on Joe Biden,” Eberhart said. “People that I’ve talked to are very amped up about how anti-Trump the Democratic convention was, and so I think they’re going to tweak some of those speeches to increase the contrast with Joe Biden even more than what they were planning.”
The biggest difficulty in putting together the convention has been COVID-19 and the dangers posed by the virus that already has killed about 176,000 Americans and infected more than 5.6 million, officials said.
The threat of the virus has made it difficult to plan events with any kind of sizable crowds, officials said.
Seeking events with event limited crowds has forced planners to drop potential venues that don’t want to be involved because of the fear of COVID-19.
The virus is the reason the Republicans pulled their convention from Charlotte in the first place, a decision that the Republican National Committee made in early June.