Republicans are off to a smooth start in Milwaukee

At Milwaukee airport, I decided it prudent to follow the signs to the “Recombobulation Area” but was disappointed to learn the 2024 Republican National Convention was being held elsewhere. 

Milwaukee has boasted a “Recombobulation Area“, just past security after passengers and their baggage are dismantled, so requiring reassembly, for 15 years. “The only such area in the world”. Actually, the lakeside brewing city – of which I am very fond – has much more to boast of than that. 

Instead, I headed to the Fiserv Forum, an 18,000-seater sports and concert venue in the Deer district, where the Democrats had intended to hold their convention in 2020 but had to call it off for Covid. There, the Republican National Committee (RNC) had turned convention (sorry) on its head and proceeded to a roll call vote of floor delegates on Donald Trump’s nomination and the announcement of his Vice-Presidential nominee on day one, instead of further down the schedule. 

Savvy political move. In 2016, the Cleveland Convention – the 2020 Convention was held under lockdown rules – had a taught atmosphere as speaker after speaker came to the podium equivocating about The Donald. Especially Senator Ted Cruz, who pointedly refused to endorse him. 

This time the Republican grandees wanted a coronation, allowing the full four days on the convention floor to be a national, headline-dominating extravaganza. A quick scan of this morning’s press tells us it’s working.

Biden, whose age issues have driven the news agenda since that disastrous debate, reinvigorated by the Putin-Zelensky, Harris-Trump mix ups, is nowhere in print. 

That has stalled the momentum of the George Clooney et al cohort trying to get Jill Biden to tell the dodderer to call it a day. More likely now that the Democrats will be stuck with Joe. The candidate Trump wants to face in November. 

Surprisingly, the assassination attempt is not being milked. The 20mm fortuitous misdirection of the bullet that saved Trump’s life is respectfully referenced. But that’s it.

The near miss became immediately obvious as soon as Trump took to the Convention floor yesterday evening, sporting a bizarre flat white dressing on his right ear. His defiant, bloodstained, fist-pumping photo backgrounded by the Stars and Stripes says it all. Why over-egg the pudding?

There is an emerging possibility that his flirt with death may have awakened some untypical statesmanlike tendencies in the 45^th President of the United States. More likely, his close team is proving better at reining him in. Can it last until Thursday night?

Trump’s choice of Vice-Presidential nominee, Ohio Senator J D Vance, is savvy – for two reasons. He is a former Trump critic turned supporter. A political St. Paul who has trod the road to Damascus. And no kowtowing to political correctness had a place in his nomination. Trump is not being saddled with a Kamala Harris. He has a credible successor.

The screened videos of Trump dancing at his rallies, slickly edited to the thump of Village People’s 1978 hit YMCA, should have been ironically laughable for a 78-year-old candidate. Except that, in this election, Trump is facing an 81-year-old opponent for whom the Trump moves would be simply impossible. Point made. 

More colour to follow.

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