CLEVELAND — “If the election was today, she wins no doubt,” a Massachusetts delegate said while discussing who would win the Presidential Election, Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. The delegate, who declined permission to use his name, wasn’t joking and his lack of a playful smile seemed to worry his colleague.
“Really?” his colleague asked visibly stirred but not angry.
“Yes if the vote is today, I think she wins. But there’s still months to go and I think it can shift once he’s finally made the nominee,” the first delegate said.
And it’s that hope the American voting public will sense that shift, embrace the shift and ultimately follow the “movement” led by Trump that many delegates wished and yearned for.
Scene as Donald Trump becomes GOP nominee for President. @thesnews pic.twitter.com/ngyFwVtMnP
— Stephen Olschanski (@SOlschanski) July 19, 2016
Repeatedly it was uttered throughout the convention from many delegates and alternate delegates alike, that Trump’s unlikely rise to the highest position within the Republican Party was not just a populist fad with a quickly expiring shelf-life. They used the word “revolution” in conjunction with the movement and, in the words of the man who garnered the most votes ever during primary season, they believe he is going to bring real change to Washington.
The current state of affairs
As many delegates backed Trump for a variety of reasons, some felt disaffected with his rise and have since painted the Republican Party as fractured. Some delegates refused to back Trump even after it became apparent months ago that he would be the nominee.
Furthermore, they brought that fight all the way to the convention floor, even as Trump’s campaign and party officials tried endlessly to put a stop to it.
The Never Trump/Dump Trump movement threw one last and assuredly loud effort behind a chance to force a roll call vote in the hopes of changing the rules for of the convention, allowing delegates to vote their conscience.
The vote, done with a voicing of “yeas” and “nays” left Arkansas Rep. Steve Womack to decipher the auditory levels of each vote. He first declared the “yeas” as the winner, which triggered a myriad of boos and cheers from the convention floor that reverberated throughout the hall.
Womack left the stage only to come back several minutes later to redo the vote. Again after the yeas and nays were cast, he determined the yeas had won again. The raucous convention floor booed again but the boos were drowned out by chants of Trump’s name.
One of the two Massachusetts delegates who spoke to The State News said the roll call vote opportunity was an attempt to destroy the party and paint it as fractured.
Alternate delegate Chris Leiter of Washington State called the absence of a roll call vote a “disgrace” after what he felt was an indecisive yelling vote.
“If we’re concerned about the fairness and accuracy of a voice vote when it’s as close as it was when we know there was shouting from the alternate section — I heard it myself, I witnessed it — when there’s concern about the accuracy of it, I think the fair and equitable thing to do, the right thing to do so that there’s no question about how many votes went in favor or against adopting the rules as written, the roll call vote is absolutely the right way to do it,” Leiter said.
Michigan’s RNC Committeewoman, Kathy Berden said Republicans gathered here are a family and every family has disagreements.
“There are just some people who have different ideas and they are very vocal,” Berden said. “It’s alright to have different ideas, but when there is a vote and there is an outcome, you go with the outcome. You can’t be a cry baby about it or anything.”
Florida delegate Mike Cribby added to Berden’s sentiments on Tuesday saying the roll call vote was “much ado about nothing.”
Other delegates shared in Cribby and Berden’s belief, saying even if the roll call vote had reached the floor it would’ve been quashed, and there was no need for extended banter and disagreement over outcomes a faction of the party didn’t like.
It seems to leave the party in a particularly curious limbo. Delegates and party leaders have called for unity and quelled the last remaining embers trying to unseat Trump. They have found an extra-large portion to back Trump, though posits of the Never Trump movement will remain even on Election Night in November and might hurt Trump’s and the GOP’s chances of capturing the White House.
So it left the question out there, with all of Trump’s divisive comments and some leaders still refusing to cast their vote for him, why is Trump enticing to some and what happens going forward?
Why they want Trump
The Massachusetts delegate made no qualm in his answer.
“Because the other option is so bad,” he said.
It was Clinton who seemed to be the biggest star of the convention, her name drawing scathing criticism and being invoked directly or indirectly as a perilous evil in every speech from the opening prayer to the closing speeches.
“Hillary for prison, she deserves to be in stripes,” Patricia Smith, mother of Sean Smith who was killed in the attack on the American Embassy in Benghazi, said. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie led a guilty/not guilty faux court session on Clinton’s record that seemed to rile the delegates into a frenzy.
Speaker after speaker lambasted Clinton’s record from the time she was First Lady to her recent days as Secretary of State, stating how bad they felt Clinton had been in accordance with each day’s theme of Make America _____ Again to rave cheers.
Many shared in the Massachusetts delegate’s statement, the other side seemed to be so bad they had no option. That Massachusetts delegate was a John Kasich voter in the primary but said he switched to Trump because “he’s a winner and I didn’t want to support a loser.”
It was Trump’s winning ways and non-politically correct speech that seemed to be a particularly fervent answer among supporters. Many too seemed worried about the future of their children and grandchildren, seeing Trump as the answer to their woes.
Dennis Pittman, a Michigan alternate delegate, has been a Trump supporter from nearly the inception of Trump’s candidacy. He described Trump as a kind and generous man but still called Trump an outsider, something he liked about him. Pittman grew up the son of a father in the auto industry and is currently worried about trade imbalances and trade deals that have sent jobs his father used to have over to Mexico.
“Fixing the trade imbalances is long overdue,” Pittman said.
He expounded on that as well saying Trump would curtail the perceived economic failure and boost the standard of living back to what it used to be when his father could raise a family and have a house on a single income. He wants change and to him, Trump is change.
“Let me put it to you this way, if we’re going to make any changes we have to win an election,” Cribby said. “And we need a candidate that is electable. I really like Senator Cruz but he reminds me of a cop who pulls you over and gives you a speeding ticket for your own good.”
He added that for the GOP to be successful they needed to acquire the voters who aren’t as tuned in as he and his fellow delegates.
“The point is, we have to elect somebody that is going to win and then we have to use our influence as activists to help guide our candidate to the proper decisions,” Cribby said. “I think Donald Trump is a smart enough man to know that when he gets good advice from good candidates or good senators and others that he’ll listen to their opinions and if he agrees with them, we will have the best salesman in the world selling our platform.”
Even as Cribby and other delegates talked about Trump in a way genuine to their thoughts, it was speakers behind the podium who saw Clinton as the can-to-be-kicked instead of Trump as a man worthy of presenting. It was a stark contrast in routes to winning, both focused on the electability of the candidates but only one being shouted from the stage.
Going forward
What happens going forward if Trump loses? The questions seemed ludicrous to some and a cause of worry to others.
When Trump appeared on the screen at the RNC on Tuesday, delegates muddled around the TVs in Freedom Plaza. One delegate, beer in hand, smirked.
“He knows he’s going to win, he so knows it,” the delegate said lifting the bottle to his lips, downing the last of the beer and striding back to the bar.
Many seem adamant that Trump will win. A Pennsylvania delegate overheard as he passed through the plaza said Trump will take Pennsylvania by six points on election night.
So the question was posed, what happens next, win or lose?
“I’m worried for my grandkids,” Pittman said. “The world is not as close to as good as it was when I was, let’s say, seven years old. You could walk down the street by yourself – now not so much. Crime has gone out of control, availability of good paying jobs is down.”
The delegates are worried about the continuation of President Obama’s policies if Clinton takes office, something the slate of speakers have expounded on nearly every day. They see it as a failed attempt and that the only way to move forward with change is to vote Trump.
“We’re running against Hillary, I don’t think there’s going to be any fracture at all,” Mark Candon, an alternate delegate from Vermont, said.
He compared Trump’s campaign with former President Ronald Reagan’s in 1980, saying Trump could turn the country around just like Reagan despite having both been labeled “amiable dunce[s].”
It remains to be seen who will emerge victorious and whether the Republican Party can whip enough voters into line behind Trump. All they know is he’s the man for change. And to them, change is better.
