Jim Geraghty: The GOP Still Has Some Fight Left in It!

Someone else besides me thought that the Republican National Convention started out surprisingly strong last night. There were a lot of damn good speakers. It was a sharp contrast to the Democrats' "Temple of Doom" of last week.

Jim Geraghty of "The Morning Jolt" in National Review has an interesting take on opening night.

Here's some snippets:

On the menu today: a surprisingly strong opening night for the Republican National Convention... 

Most Democrats probably didn’t watch the Republican National Convention last night. Those that did probably thought it was schlocky, jingoistic, dishonest, and ridiculous nonsense. 

But any Democrat who understood that the convention wasn’t aimed at convincing them — a fact that vast swaths of Washington political journalists are just incapable of grasping — should watch the programming and feel just a little less confident about November. Not panicking, just a recognition that the Trump campaign and GOP still have some fight left in them, and a message that could easily resonate with large-enough pluralities in enough states to reach 270 electoral votes. 

I still would have cut Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle from the lineup, who inexplicably shouted most of her speech to an empty chamber. The best case for the president comes from non-famous or lesser-known citizens such as nurse Amy Johnson Ford, Natalie Harp discussing right-to-try, Democratic state representative Vernon Jones of Georgia, Andrew Pollack, the father of a Parkland school-shooting victim talking about the “scumbag gunman” who killed his daughter Meadow, and Maximo Alvarez, speaking bluntly about the realty of life under a socialist regime. 

Joe Biden still enjoys a lot of advantages. This is a country still grappling with a serious pandemic that restricts and impedes normal American life including schooling for children, the national unemployment rate is 10.2 percent, and too many cities are still beset by urban violence and riots. This is a tough environment for any incumbent, and every day, Donald Trump finds new ways to keep the Democratic Party’s base highly motivated. 

But you can start to see how Biden could blow this. No American will be enthusiastic for the prospect of a President Biden ordering another national shutdown to mitigate the spread of the virus. Teachers’ unions are infuriating usually friendly parents who want their kids to back into classrooms in some fashion. (Jim Jordan: “They won’t let you go to school, but they’ll let you go loot.“) A full-throated denunciation of the riots as undermining the cause of racial and social justice wouldn’t cost Biden a single vote he needs, but he just won’t do it. Trump and the Republicans are embracing patriotism almost to the point of self-parody; Democrats are arguing that the country has taken a terrible wrong turn and is constantly falling short of its values. The country is sick of political correctness and cancel culture and a discourse of constant rage and grievances. Last night, Tim Scott painted America as a land of unlimited opportunity: “Our family went from cotton to Congress.” Even friendly voices are recognizing that Biden’s message is lightest on “a concrete economic plan for average families.” And we haven’t even gotten to guns, illegal immigration, or judges. 

Right now, you would rather be Biden with a big lead than be Trump and behind. But Democrats felt really good about their chances after a widely praised convention in late summer four years ago, and we all remember how that turned out.

To read the full article, go here.