How the GOP outshined the Democrats despite running a virtual convention

Mollie Hemingway:

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Last week’s Democratic National Convention was barely watchable. People assumed that was because the Chinese coronavirus forced the convention to be held virtually. But the Republican National Convention is also being held virtually, and it was full of energy and excitement that was completely lacking at the Democratic convention.

Democrats had celebrity hosts, celebrity appearances, and all the talent of the generally liberal media to work with, yet their convention was an absolute grind to get through. Last night, Republicans moved along at a clipped pace, featured genuinely compelling stories, and the speeches drew contrasts with political opponents.
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Most pundits spent time talking about speeches by former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley or current South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott. Particularly in Scott’s case, the professional politicians did give good speeches. But the most exciting parts of the evening were speeches from everyday Americans.

The best speech of the evening was given by Maximo Alvarez, a Florida businessman who described his family fleeing Communist systems on their way to the United States. “I have seen people like this before,” he said, describing leftist totalitarian movements. When he said, “I’m speaking to you today because my family is done leaving places. There is nowhere left to go,” it was more powerful than a thousand speeches from professional politicians.

Andrew Pollack, the father of Meadow Pollack, who was murdered in the Parkland High School shooting, beautifully memorialized his daughter and talked about the government failures that helped contribute to her death. He condemned the media for focusing on gun control when it was education policy that actually led to his daughter and her classmates being vulnerable.

The only famous person to speak was Herschel Walker, the football star. He talked about his decades-long friendship with President Donald Trump and praised his work on behalf of black Americans. He also told a story about Trump going with his family to Disneyland and riding the “It’s A Small World” ride with him. It was such an unexpected anecdote.
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One of the few continuous themes of the Democratic National Convention was that some Republicans support Joe Biden for president. But the people they had speak could not have been swampier.
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By contrast, the Republican convention featured Vernon Jones, a black Democrat Georgia state representative, talking about why he supports Trump. He said when he came out for Trump, “all hell broke loose” and he faced a great deal of criticism.

Walker also talked last night about how he had been raised to be a Democrat but that he doesn’t know what Democrats stand for now. Kimberly Klacik, a black woman running as a Republican for Congress in Baltimore, talked about how her city has a number of black Republicans running to improve the situation for residents of the city. Sen. Tim Scott talked about Biden’s racist comments against black people voting Republican. All discussed how black voters are taken for granted in the Democratic Party.

Unlike a Google lobbyist endorsing Biden, a black Democrat state rep endorsing Trump publicly takes courage. Sean Parnell, running for Congress in Pennsylvania, made an explicit appeal to Democrats considering voting Republican: “In our tent, you are free.”
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They also responded to the racial slurs of the Democrats who seem to think if they say racist enough time it will become persuasive despite the lack of evidence to support it.    The production values were good and the pace was rapid and the people were interesting.  I suspect the REpublicans will build on Monday's presentation.