Day one of the 2016 Republican National Convention is in the books. Here are a few brief thoughts:
“Never Trump”
Sadly, night one of the convention highlighted many of the reasons I struggle to agree with Donald Trump’s supporters. There was gratuitous exploitation of grief for political gain. There was borderline racism toward immigrants. When Rachel Campos-Duffy, wife of Congressman Sean Duffy, R-Wis., said that her parents came to the United States from Mexico, there was light booing from the audience. But there was no reaction when Sean Duffy mentioned his Irish heritage.
Conservatives chastise liberals for making it seem as if all cops are guilty of abuse. Then many conservatives turn around and portray all illegal immigrants as burglars, rapists or murderers. Perhaps showing how far the party has fallen, President George W. Bush said it best last week at the memorial for Dallas police officers: “Too often, we judge other groups by their worst examples.” Most immigrants are not criminals. Most police officers do a fantastic job. Stop letting extremists of any group define the whole group.
Future GOP
Beneath the major headlines of the convention’s first day, the Republicans showed off the future of their party. In the afternoon, the delegates heard a speech by Alex Smith, chair of the College Republican National Committee. Bill Schuette, the attorney general of Michigan and a likely candidate for governor in 2018, also spoke. As did Kimberly Yee, the first Asian-American woman elected to the Arizona legislature. The three are likely members of the GOP’s long-term future.
As for the short-term, it was good to see many promising Republicans skip out on the event that’s more of a Trump show than a unifying, motivating GOP convention. Marco Rubio, Tim Scott, Nikki Haley and others who will likely continue to lead the party through the next presidential election were notably absent. I hope the three are a major part of the 2020 Republican convention.
About that floor fight…
Lost in the hubbub on the floor Monday afternoon over a roll call vote was what the vote was over. Delegates didn’t just want a roll call vote for the sake of a roll call vote. They wanted to reject the package of rules that govern delegate binding at this convention and the rules set for the 2020 nominating process. The rebel delegates knew they would probably lose if a roll call vote happened, but they wanted to have their voice heard nonetheless.
Whether or not the process followed the rules doesn’t matter, because the way everything happened still makes it look to the public like party officials didn’t follow their own rules. Rules over roll call votes aside, the simple voice vote seemed close enough to warrant a more precise vote if the party wants to ensure its floor votes get accurate results.
It should have been easy for party officials to allow the roll call vote, watch it (likely) fail and move on without any doubt that they had done their due diligence and come out on top. Remember, if the rebel delegates could find only about 10 states with majorities of delegates who supported the roll call vote, that seems to suggest the roll call vote would have overwhelmingly gone in party officials’ favor. Instead, party officials and Trump’s campaign leadership came out looking like the establishment that voters seemed to so overwhelmingly reject in the primaries.
Jason Russell is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
