Convention plays like reality TV

Perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise that the Republican National Convention nominating Donald Trump for president would turn out to be less like the traditional political infomercial and more like a reality TV show. And not in a good way.

Instead of projecting party unity and reaching out to the undecided voters who will decide the winner in November, the conclave that launched the general election for the GOP has spotlighted splits and stumbles, chaos and conspiracies — a narrative that might be good for attracting ratings but bad for reassuring voters. A series of missteps left it to Trump himself to regain a sense of energy and momentum with a highstakes, prime-time acceptance speech Thursday night.

In a final indignity, a Democratic super PAC called Correct the Record obtained a draft of Trump’s speech and blasted it out to reporters nearly four hours before he was to deliver it. The group’s president, Brad Woodhouse, crowed on Twitter that the leak amounted to political “malpractice” by the Trump campaign.

When Trump walked on stage, introduced by daughter Ivanka, the packed hall erupted in cheers.

“I have joined the political arena, so the powerful can no longer beat up on people who cannot defend themselves,” Trump declared in a speech that portrayed the nation as under siege at home and abroad, his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton as corrupt and the answer to this dire state of affairs standing in front of the audience. “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.”

Though the reception in the hall was tumultuous, the four-day convention failed to capitalize in a coherent way on the biggest opportunity a presidential nominee has to present a relatively unfiltered message to vot-

CONTINUED FROM 1A ers. In some ways, it may have left the GOP weaker than it was before the week began, lessening the prospects of carrying the crucial state of Ohio in the wake of a public feud with Gov. John Kasich.

“Conventions are precious, unique opportunities to go in living rooms with the candidate’s appealing story,” says Lawrence Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota. Instead, he says, the Cleveland conclave was the most “consistently dysfunctional” convention of the past three decades. “Trump’s convention has showcased division, discord and uncertainty. It reinforced all the questions about Trump rather than putting them to rest.”

Reassuring voters who are eager for change but anxious about Trump — unsure whether the blustery billionaire businessman and reality TV star has the demeanor, knowledge and leadership skills to be president — was the main goal of the week that convention manager Paul Manafort set Monday morning.

But the testimonials on Trump from the podium at the Quicken Arena by his children, employees, conservative activists and others were overshadowed by a litany of damaging distractions.

Consider Day One, when Manafort called Kasich, one of Trump’s vanquished rivals from the primaries, an “embarrassment” to his state. The popular governor was in Cleveland for convention-related events but didn’t address the convention, nor has he endorsed the nominee.

Or Day Two, which began with the revelation that the well-received speech Melania Trump delivered the night before included language lifted from the speech Michelle Obama delivered at the Democratic National Convention in 2008. The Trump campaign spent a day and a half issuing conflicting explanations, in- cluding a flat denial, before identifying a speechwriter as the culprit.

Or Day Three, when attention focused not on the speech by running mate Mike Pence but on the defiant speech by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, another primary rival, who pointedly failed to endorse Trump and urged Americans to “vote your conscience.” That was seen as such a clarion call to vote for somebody else that Clinton quickly sent out a tweet repeating it. By the time Cruz finished speaking, the Quicken Arena was filled with a chorus of boos — not exactly the picture of party unity.

“There is no doubt that this convention has been more chaotic than recent ones, and that there have been a series of process issues that have complicated the coverage, but there have also been many highlights as well,” says Phil Musser, a senior Republican strategist. He cautioned against assuming the worst in an unpredictable year. “The conventional wisdom about what constitutes ‘success’ in a traditional context has been upended again and again this cycle. Polling next week will assess the net benefit of the convention to the political forces of the campaign.”

Republican strategist Frank Donatelli — who served in senior roles for Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole and John McCain — says a series of “unforced errors” by the Trump team signals “a thin campaign that was basically riding a wave and not controlling events.” That raises questions about how well prepared it is to handle a general election guaranteed to be bruising. “I guess I would say they’ve had difficulty projecting a unified front and of crafting the larger message that could appeal to the American people.”

Before the convention, there were fears that protests in the street would create the sort of chaos that marked the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago. This time, the protests outside were under control. The chaos was inside the hall.