5 Questions Ahead Of The Republican National Convention

Speaker 1: 00:00 The Republican national convention was officially gaveled into order this morning after a number of false starts and pandemic resets, convention events will now take place mainly between Washington DC and Charlotte, North Carolina, like the democratic convention. Last week, there will be no big halls filled with delegates, but the GOP reportedly is hoping to give their four day event more of a typical convention feel among the not so typical events planned our president Trump accepting the nomination from the white house grounds and Trump speaking on every night of the convention. Joining me with a preview of the RNC are my guests fad Couser is political science professor at UC San Diego and chair of the political science department and fad. Welcome back. Thanks for having me, Maureen and Ron nearing former chair of the San Diego County Republican party and former state Republican party chair, Ron, welcome to the show. Thank you very much. Now, fad, let me start with you. What differences do you expect to see between this convention and the democratic convention we saw last week? Speaker 2: 01:06 Well, the Republican party has had less time to plan a virtual convention because it has a, it was planning even through the pandemic. There was a lot of, a lot of excitement about trying to do an in person event and that pivot came later than the democratic party. So the question is will the Republican party either, uh, find ways to, to bring virtual and recorded events that generate excitement, sort of like the parade of States that the Democrats have, or will they take a very different tack? And I think this is what's what they're signaling of having more live events, uh, and having more things that look like a traditional convention. And I think that's certainly, uh, the, the era, the place in which Donald Trump, uh, is most comfortable with with live and impromptu events. I think that'll have more of that field and the Democrats have, Speaker 1: 01:55 Yeah, around the venue for the convention was changed from Charlotte to Jacksonville. Then back to Charlotte, were you getting nervous about how this whole thing would turn out? Speaker 2: 02:03 Well as a Republican, my concern has been the number of process related stories that have really dominated the news. You know, when I was the presidential campaign spokesman for Senator Ted Cruz, one of the things that, uh, that was clear to me is that process stories don't win votes. And so when we're talking about moving convention venues, or we're talking about the post office, or we're talking about things like that, but none of that moves the ball, you don't win any votes with those conversations. So part of the challenge, uh, I think before the Republican team is to put a, put a stop to the process related stories so that we can spend that limited bandwidth of voter retention, uh, on issues related to the future and to the country. So to the extent that we can succeed in getting that done this week, I think that will be helpful. Speaker 1: 02:54 So, Ron, what would you like to see the convention highlight? Well, to continue Speaker 2: 03:00 On what I, what I was saying, and that is that there's been too much conversation over the last several months about the election itself, Malin voting, uh, you know, the sending law enforcement to polling places, things like that. Those are all stories about the election and that doesn't win the election. The side that gets bogged down in talking about the election, is that a disadvantage? So I want to see a conversation that's focused on the future of the country on the second term agenda on, uh, and on tackling many of the big issues that brings bring Republicans, uh, together. Uh, and, uh, I think that's, uh, that is an important strategic communications imperative coming out of this. Uh, I think a related issue is that when we look at the democratic convention, it was very clear that the Democrats are very focused on building a majority. Speaker 2: 03:48 Uh, and that's why they dedicated, you know, one of their convention nights just to having Republicans come up, who, uh, you know, who would, uh, we're supporting Joe Biden, uh, on the Republican side, you see an approach that is mainly focused on activating the base on mobilization, on turnout, on getting, uh, the Republican team really excited, but we already have an advantage, uh, in, uh, in excitement, the enthusiasm level among Republicans is higher than among Democrats. So I would like to see, uh, some, uh, additional effort on building in electoral majority IX, going beyond what the Trump brand can bring to the party. Uh, and, uh, and both at the convention and in the weeks to follow. I think that's right. There are essentially two ways to win elections. One is by persuading voters in the middle. And the second is by mobilizing your base Democrats held the persuasion convention, right? Speaker 2: 04:38 They were building a big tent. They had Republicans, they had, uh, they had every part of the democratic party on display. What the Republican convention is really going to be about is about mobilizing the base. And it's going to be about Donald Trump. It's not going to have the last, you know, the, the last Republican president in, in, in George W. Bush, uh, it's not going to have the last Republican nominee in Mitt Romney. None of those people are on the invite list. It's not going to have many swing state leaders because many of them don't want to be part of, of this convincing and associated right now with a president who brings political risks along with political benefits. So it's really going to be focused on the base and, and that's a very different strategy than what we saw last week in the DNC. Speaker 1: 05:24 And apparently along the lines of what you're saying, that is also going to be focused on president Trump himself. He apparently is planning on appearing and speaking each night of the convention. Usually the nominee gives his or her address on the last night of the convention. So does this indicate that our TV veteran Donald Trump believes he's the reason most people would tune in? Speaker 2: 05:47 Yeah, I think he's right, right. He's the writing's leader of the Republican party. Uh, it's also, the party become the very much the party of Trump at this moment. Uh, and it's the party of Donald Trump and Donald Trump jr. And so you're going to enlarge that. You're going to see lots of Trump family members highlighted in a way that, that I can't remember ever seeing in, in, in a, in, um, a national convention. And so that is, is gonna make this have a very different feel to Speaker 1: 06:14 We're on, is that, are there rising stars to watch at this convention from the Republican party, Speaker 2: 06:21 There are some rising stars, uh, and the future leaders and presidential candidates and Mike Pompeo, Nikki Haley, uh, and, uh, and others, not all of them, uh, you know, there are many more aspirational Republican leaders who will not be on the, on the convention agenda. And I think the organizers of the convention are right to focus on, uh, on, uh, on winning this election. And that's going to be defined by Donald Trump. And I, I agree that he is the ratings driver. There will be far more, more people watching the convention, uh, when Donald Trump is speaking than, uh, than when anyone else is speaking for sure, for the same reason that people always do it because you don't know what he's going to say. Uh, and that has really worked very much to his advantage. It's why in 2016, for every one minute that another Republican candidate in the primary has got on television, Donald Trump got 10, uh, because he's very, very good at commanding that, that media attention. And I think that works, but to certainly it works to his advantage. Speaker 1: 07:21 Now, one of the many differences between this Republican convention and the one in 2016 is that Donald Trump is now running as an incumbent, usually incumbent president's campaign on how much better off people are now than they were four years ago. But Ron, that's a difficult message now, isn't it? Speaker 2: 07:39 Yeah, certainly the entire, uh, foundation and design of the president's reelection campaign was, was blown up in the first quarter of this year when the country was hit by a, the COVID pandemic and by the economic consequences of that pandemic, uh, and therefore all of the themes, which they had been planning to run on. And even the management that had been brought on to, to run that campaign, Brad, Parscale all of that had to be changed up, whereas the Democrats they've had to change, but they haven't had to change as much because they're, they've started as a challenger. There's still the challenger and it's still a referendum on the incumbent. Although the issues that will be on people's minds will be very different than what anyone had earlier planned Speaker 1: 08:23 Fed the polls have not been good for the president in recent months. What, in your opinion, does this convention have to do for president Trump? Speaker 2: 08:31 Yes. To seal the deal with voters in the battleground States that can still win him this election. So Florida, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, there is a route to an electoral college victory for Donald Trump, uh, by, you know, justice. He won by a very narrow margin electoral college victory, and a popular vote law with a popular loss in 2016. Speaker 3: 08:57 So he's going to get there if he does by, by locking down voters who are concerned about some of the same things that they were concerned about four years ago, uh, you know, he's gonna, in some ways he's gonna run still as the change agent who wants to fix what's wrong and law and order is going to be a prominent theme in that. So you're going to see the McCloskey is tonight who are, uh, the couple who brandished guns at protesters outside their, their, their Manson, and in st. Louis during the social justice movement, that's going to be juxtaposed to the news coming out of Wisconsin about another police involved shooting, and it's going to help Donald Trump drive home a law and order theme. And I think he'll all, you'll also see him talking about the wall and talking about how well, if you elect him for another four more years, he'll finish the wall that he started with with, with, uh, with a few hundred miles of border construction. So I think it's gonna, he's going to be running as the change agent, even though he's the incumbent because with the pandemic and the economic losses, he can't say you're better off today than you were four years ago. Speaker 1: 09:59 I've been speaking with that. Couser political science professor at UC San Diego and chair of the political science department. And with Ron nearing former chair of the San Diego County Republican party and former state party chair, Ron and Thad. Thank you very much. Speaker 3: 10:13 Thanks for having me. My pleasure. Thank you. Speaker 1: 10:16 KPBS FM will broadcast nightly coverage of the Republican national convention from six to 8:30 PM.