Democrats are giddy that Joe Biden was able to read a 20-minute speech from a TelePrompter. Imagine setting the bar that low for the guy you hope to elect president of the United States.
Biden’s speech concluded a four-day dirge, otherwise known as the Democrat National Convention. From every viewpoint, the undertaking was a bust. Ratings for the evening broadcasts ranged from down 27% to down 9% compared to 2016; the best performance came on the night that Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., spoke.
Astonishingly, the last night, when Joe Biden addressed the nation, saw only a 325,000 bump from the preceding evening; in the past three elections, the final night audience surged anywhere from 4.6 to 10.4 million viewers. Uh-oh.
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Also, the RealClearPolitics average of betting odds shows Biden’s chances drooping every day of the convention; on Aug. 17 he was up by 15.2 points; Sunday pros judged him 12.8 percent more likely to win. At the beginning of the month, he was up by 25.
Who is surprised? Over four evenings, Democrats wallowed in the most depressing rending of garments ever seen on national television.
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When they weren’t berating the nation for being racist, they were accusing President Trump of every sort of villainy, insulting him and by reference the 51% of likely voters who support him.
It’s a darned strange strategy for winning back those swing-state Democrats who came out for Trump in 2016.
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It’s an even weirder way to approach “Uniting America,” which was how Democrats titled their convention.
Rather than celebrating the obvious advances made by black Americans, including the election (twice) of our first African American president and now the first woman of color on a major party ticket, Democrats put combatting racism at the heart of their program
This was a confusing choice, since Democrats presumably have the African American vote locked up. Perhaps it signals concern over recent polling that shows only 47% of Black voters under the age of 30 in swing states planning to vote for Joe Biden; or maybe Democrats think that in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, the country places racial concerns above all others.
One view: the Democrats missed their timing. In Gallup’s August poll of which issues Americans consider most important, race ranks below the economy, the coronavirus and “government/poor leadership”; the number of Americans listing “race relations/racism” as the nation’s biggest problem dropped nearly in half between June and August. Those “peaceful protests” over the murder of George Floyd that mushroomed into violent crime sprees in numerous cities may have alienated early supporters.
Who knows what drove the programming decisions? All I know is that the final product had all the bounce and joy of a dumbbell.
Monday the Republicans get their turn at bat; you can bet they’ll come out swinging.
Democrats never once mentioned the violence plaguing our cities. They know they are vulnerable on this issue.
The GOP convention will be – guaranteed – more positive, more upbeat and more fun than the tortured slog-fest we just witnessed.
Republicans will talk about how to move the country forward, a plan that will speak to most Americans. The president and others will highlight the extraordinary gains notched by every strata of our society in the first three years of his presidency: record-low unemployment overall and especially for minorities, women, the disabled and even ex-felons.
Not only was everyone able to get a job, just as recently as six months ago, the data shows that millions were able to quit their employment to climb a rung higher on the ladder of success. That’s the best welfare program in the world, and that’s what Trump delivered.
It wasn’t magic. Tax reforms that allowed our corporations to compete with their global rivals combined with commonsense roll-backs of red tape created a surge in optimism not once seen during the Obama-Biden years.
Before the virus put the country on hold, the economy had added seven million jobs in total and half a million manufacturing jobs, which President Trump promised and Barack Obama derided, saying such a turnaround would require a “magic wand.”
Trump also reset our relationship with China, finally confronting Beijing for its decades-long theft of American technology and its disregard for world trading rules.
It is no wonder that the Chinese are pushing for Biden to win in November. That’s all Americans should need to know about the upcoming election.
We have also made great progress in the Middle East. Instead of a phony deal meant to temporarily slow Iran’s march to a nuclear weapon, Trump has actually cornered that hostile country, bringing Israel and Arab nations together to stand against the region’s most dangerous exporter of terror.
Trump’s White House has also gone to bat for minorities, providing the first-ever permanent funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities and passing widely acclaimed criminal justice reform.
Meanwhile, Republicans will lambast Democrat mayors and governors for the destruction of our great cities that is taking place before our eyes. The surging crime in New York, Chicago, Minneapolis, Seattle and elsewhere is happening on their watch and because of their policies.
Democrats never once mentioned the violence plaguing our cities. They know they are vulnerable on this issue.
Biden is ahead nationally, but polls show his lead narrowing in recent weeks, and especially in the all-important swing states.
Trafalgar Group recently published a survey showing Trump and Biden effectively tied in Minnesota, contradicting other polls putting Biden ahead by double digits. Trafalgar explains that “social desirability” bias makes Trump voters nervous about proclaiming their support for the president; their analysts recognized the role of so-called “shy voters” in 2016, and called some races more accurately than their peers.
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Today, Trafalger say there are more “shy Trump voters” than there were four years ago. I don’t doubt it. If you can lose your job (or your neighbor’s friendship) for wearing a MAGA hat, why would you be up front?
We won’t know until November how many of those shy Trump voters there are, but I bet that the Democrat convention upped their numbers.