Analysis Of The First Republican Midterm Convention

0:00I'm asking you to let us finish the job we began with the greatest two years in the history of the presidency. This has been the most successful two years financially and every other way in the history of the presidency. Wands voters to help them finish the job. And making that appeal to Republican voters, historically Republicans are a little light turnout on midterm elections. We saw that a few years ago. We saw that in 2018. And so what now can we expect? Did this help sway any Republican voters? Did it help sway independence or those on the fringes of the party? And of course we have night two today. Dennis Dornoy is the strategic communications leader in veteran political advisor at Dennis R. Consulting. Dennis, good morning. Good to have you back. Good morning. Thank you for having me on again. I appreciate it. Question more, Verallie last night, what did you make of it? Did that help the Republican cause it all?

1:01Well, absolutely, absolutely more Verallie. As we've seen in this, everyone's reported, right now Republicans have a bit of an enthusiasm as it turns into a selection. And President Trump decided that it would be a good idea to hold this midterm to get organized voters. And you heard him literally say last night, think of me as being on the ballot, come out and vote. And a lot of Republicans believe that if they can turn out the voters who voted for President Trump, but generally as you just mentioned, don't come out and vote in the midterms, that they'll have a much more successful election than the poll numbers are showing. So what we saw last night was speeches and conversations directly to those individuals in the effort and in the hope that they will turn out and vote this November. Does making the midterms though a referendum on him energize the base? So does it make it harder for the GOP candidates to run their own records? Well, it becomes a little bit of a mixed message, doesn't it?

2:03And I do know that there are some Republicans who chose not to go to the convention, who are involved in some very competitive races here in our state and other places. But then again, you also had someone like Charlotte, Alisa McLean, my broadgers from Michigan who turned out and were there. So I think depending on the type of race that you're involved in, depending on how you view and how you see the president being supported in your own district, a lot of those candidates made the decision either to state, moment, campaign or to support the president and the party down in Dallas. I think the idea of this makes a lot of sense in a midterm election. If you've got the money, Republicans do Democrats don't. Do you think there's any envy on the left that maybe this type of event could have helped voters? Well, I think Democrats tried it three times before and they stopped because of the cost

3:05and because of the inciting. I think what you saw last night was something that was very well organized, something that kept the message on where they wanted, where Republicans want to go. We saw Republican after Republican attack Democrats for being wrong on the economy, for being out of such with what American voters want. So I think when you run a convention that has a central theme and has a goal, it can be successful and obviously we'll see what tonight brings, but I would expect many of the messages being more the same. And again, President Trump being President Trump, he's going to close out the convention as well. I don't know if we'll go for another two hours like he did last night, but he's certainly going to provide the closing arguments for Republicans as they head into November. I know the biggest surprise last night was this proposed $5,000 Trump dividend for American adults if the Republicans retain Congress. Is that a serious policy proposal or a turnout strategy or a little bit of both?

4:06You know, I think as one person who is a little bit worried about the national debt adding another billion dollars is certainly something that I really want to see where the proof is on how that would be paid for. Again, I take it as one of those things that President Trump says. I don't think a lot of people fully expect a $5,000 check come November 5th if Republicans are in the House and the Senate. But I think the larger point in getting is that in order to keep the country on track as he believes it is and as many Republicans think it is, it's sort of that tongue-in-cheek incentive to come out and vote for Republicans. And again, I think seeing Senator Federman from Pennsylvania get up there and speak on behalf and make some of the arguments against his own party that he hear Republicans making certainly was a surprise and a shock in one of the highlights and surprises from last night.

5:06Do you think that this carries any weight at this point as we sit here in early to mid-September? I mean, is it too late to hold an event like this? Would they be better served to hold up essentially also a fundraiser type of atmosphere with some ra-ra speech, try to get voters on board earlier in the calendar? Well, I think you know, with for us here in Michigan we have absentees going out in a couple of weeks. So in some ways having it fresh on people's minds as the absentee about start to hit is something that's very good. I think you also heard the president say that he was going to campaign in competitive states. He'll show up at least once if not more than that. So again, you know, him coming into states and obviously I very much expect that to see him here in Michigan once or twice will help reiterate the message that they delivered last night. I think the timing really is meant that as we come out of Labor Day, most people start to pay attention to politics again, you know, whether you're sending your kids off to school,

6:10whatever the case may be. You know, I think it is a good time to start to remind voters that hey, you know, there's an election in a couple of months. You know, the stakes and again, he will reiterate that message coming into Michigan once or twice over the next couple of days. Well, you know, after night one, Dennis, did the Republicans brought in their appeal or was it just really a rally design to motivate the voters who already support him? Yeah, I think, you know, what we saw last night, at least in terms of the speeches, it was very much a Republican driven speech. And again, I think one of the main focuses for the party right now is turning out Republican voters or known Republican voters who tend to sit out the midterm elections. And I think it was last night was, you know, trying to give them a reason in saying, you know, this is why it's important, this is why you need to turn out. So the focus really in terms of message was on a lot of things that was meant to drive those Republican voters back to the polls. I think probably in the individual races, you know, certainly you've seen Mike Rogers

7:13do it. Individual candidates have a more, a message more designed to attract independent voters. Last night and the convention and the event itself is to really motivate Republican voters to get out to the ballot to vote and to turn out. And again, I mean, I think it was Newt Gingrich, former speaker who said, you know, if we work together as a team, we will be successful if these races are just seen as individual races, Republicans will struggle a bit. So again, it really is targeting Republican voters who don't turn out in the midterms to get them to vote for Republicans. Dennis, don't know, we appreciate your insights. As always, thank you. We'll talk again soon. Have a great day. Thank you. You do the same. Yeah, interesting to see what night two will hold. Yeah. Any more big surprises in Dallas. Oh, I'm sure they got something dialed. Sure they do. All right, we'll take break. It's caught up on the headlines on the other side. Also, Dr. Steve Craig hops in. We hop on the couch and try to solve the world's problems. It's all coming up in jam morning.