First Lady Melania Trump had the last, climactic star speaking spot last night and she made the most of it, flawlessly delivering a speech that was different in content and tone from any other so far at the convention. She did not attack Joe Biden and the Democrats directly, nor even very much indirectly. She accented what she sees as positive about her husband and his work, chastised the media for (as she sees it) unfairly attacking him, and talked of the need for compassion, empathy and unity in the nation’s fight against the coronavirus pandemic and drug addiction.
That’s was only some of it. There are plenty of people—and not all of them Democrats—who will argue that her speech, good as it was, didn’t seem in touch with the reality of her husband and his actions. For example, she warned of bad influences on social media; her husband floods twitter daily with lies and vicious personal attacks.
For the two plus hours before the First Lady’s talk, the virus pandemic got scant mention. The time was most filled with one speech after another emphasizing a litany of standard Trump favorite campaign themes: Biden and Democrats are “a threat to lead a socialists take-over of America;”
“They’ll take away your guns” (words to that effect), anti-abortion, and warnings about China. Claims that Trump has been strong and tough on China while Biden has been weak stood out because this was mentioned so often, especially in the first hour.
Again, this night, the television production was smooth and of top quality, but the content…well, certainly the First Lady’s speech was different and interesting, whatever else anyone may have thought of it. As for the rest of the time…well, it ran the risk of being predictable and boring to many people, but perhaps not to the Trump faithful.
As for undecided voters, each side knows they probably need to win over a high percentage of the undecideds to get elected but nobody knows at this stage what those voters may be thinking, about the conventions or any other part of what is still a fluid, could-go-either-way Presidential campaign.