2016 July 19^th

The first day of the Republican Convention is over and we have seen a premier spectacle of mismanagement. All the Democrats have to do is point to this disaster as an example of what’s in store for the country if we elect Donald J. Trump.

It began with a group who wanted to see a roll call vote on a rules issue. The chair asked for a voice vote and then ruled in favor of the anti-roll call pro-Trump forces. The Colorado delegation walked out and many other delegates were upset by the high-handed way the “leadership” handled this protest.

Ohio’s Governor John Kasich will not be attending the convention even though it is in Cleveland. Governor Kasich, a very popular governor, has many differences with Donald Trump. Trump claims that Governor Kasich is upset because Trump beat him so badly in the primaries and that is why he is staying away from the convention. Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign director, took pains to vilify this popular governor for his failure to appear at the convention and cheer for Trump. This willingness to alienate Governor Kasich and the many people in Ohio who admire him is, frankly, stupid. No Republican has won the White House in modern times without winning Ohio and vilifying Ohio’s popular governor won’t help Trump win Ohio.

Of the Monday night speakers a former Navy Seal, Marcus Luttrell, was the most effective for his impassioned patriotic plea. Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani was noteworthy for the volume of his oration in which he enthusiastically supported the police and condemned the recent spate of police killings. He did not get around to mentioning the killing of black men by police. That does not seem to be any concern of Giuliani or of the convention. It might account for the miniscule percentage of African American votes going to Trump.

The evening’s highlight was a speech by Melania Trump, Donald Trump’s wife. Mrs. Trump did a creditable job reading her speech from a teleprompter in her heavily accented English. Her effort here was to soften the offensively hard edges that Trump usually presents to the public, an image that says, “This is all about me.” He came on stage to introduce his wife in a swirl of soft backlighted stage smoke, ever the showman.

Melania Trump’s performance was quickly shown to have many elements in common with a similar speech given in 2004 by Michelle Obama. The segments in question have been shown side by side and shown over and over again. There is no doubt that portions of Mrs. Obama’s speech were plagiarized. This is an appalling slip-up on the part of an understaffed presidential campaign, a campaign which should have made sure these plagiarized phrases did not appear in Mrs. Trump’s speech.

Trump’s campaign manager, the same Paul Manafort who earlier had attacked the Governor of Ohio for not attending the convention, jumped in to make a fool of himself once again. Manafort, and the rest of the various staff people and the Trump political supporters now claim that no plagiarizing took place, that these parallel identical phrases “just happened.” Oh yes, and this outcry of plagiarism was all the fault of Hillary Clinton who lives in horror of any other strong woman.

Donald Trump is upset, very upset-- so we are told. Subjecting the candidate’s wife to the charge of plagiarism is a firing offense. Whether or not Manafort can save his job by claiming that no plagiarizing occurred and therefore no sin was committed might work. Does anyone believe Manafort will last until the end of the week? But then who could Trump get to replace him...maybe Jared Kushner, Ivanka’s husband, or maybe Ivanka herself. Anyone would be better than Paul Manafort. Stay tuned!