Last week’s Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia made history: The four-day event ended with Hillary Clinton becoming the first woman to accept a major political party’s nomination for president. Speeches from Michelle Obama, Bill Clinton and Gold Star family Khizr and Ghazala Kahn also made waves in the news as Democrats came together to boost their standing in the election race.
Just after the event, George Washington Today caught up with the Graduate School of Political Management’s professional-in-residence and President of Nordlinger Associates Gary Nordlinger, who discussed noteworthy moments from the convention and described how the campaign might shake out for both Ms. Clinton and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump moving forward.
Mr. Sanders’ nearly 2,000 supporters on the convention floor could have turned the event into a nightmare on national television for all four days (much as Senator Kennedy’s supporters did at the 1980 convention). However, Mr. Sanders managed to get the vast majority to settle down after Monday night, despite tensions after leaked emails from the Democratic National Committee suggested staffers undercut Mr. Sanders’s campaign.
Normally, I would have said Michelle Obama’s remarkable speech was the most memorable. However, Donald Trump’s post-convention clash with Khizr and Ghazala Kahn turned a short but powerful speech into a four-day story. A Muslim Gold Star family who lost their son in Iraq, accusing Mr. Trump of never having made a sacrifice and waving a copy of the Constitution of the United States made for a powerful presentation. However, had Mr. Trump not responded, it would have been a sound bite on the Friday national news for only a few hours.
3. The Convention's Impact on the Numbers
According to the Gallup Organization, the average convention bounce was 3.8 percent in the five presidential elections from 1996 to 2012. On July 18, before either convention, Ms. Clinton led Mr. Trump by an average 46.75 percent to 41.75 percent—a 5 percent average lead in the ABC, NBC, CNN and the Economist polls.
July 25, before the Democratic Convention, Ms. Clinton led by 45.25 percent to 44.75 percent, cutting her lead from 5 percent to .5 percent—a 4 percent bounce for Mr. Trump (based on CNN, CBS, NBC and The Economist polls).
As of noon on Aug. 1, only CBS has released data: 47 percent for Ms. Clinton and 41 percent for Mr. Trump. Last week, poll numbers indicated 44 percent for Mr. Trump and 43 percent for Ms. Clinton. While I don’t want to generalize based on one survey, it does suggest Ms. Clinton had a better week than Mr. Trump.
4. The Road Ahead for the Clinton Campaign
After her historic nomination, Ms. Clinton’s must avoid the Jimmy Carter strategy against Ronald Reagan in 1980.
One of my “universal common denominators” is “we all want a life that is easier for ourselves and better for our children.” We may purchase as consumers, but I believe we vote as investors as we are investing in our futures. In my opinion, President Carter’s 1980 campaign was more about Ronald Reagan not being qualified to be president instead of presenting the voters with his vision of where the country would be with four more years of his leadership. With more than two-thirds of the voters saying they believe the country is heading in the wrong direction, Ms. Clinton needs to do far more than paint Mr. Trump as not having the “temperament or experience to be president.”
5. The Trump Strategy Moving Forward
Mr. Trump’s main challenge is going to be to avoid “foot-in-mouth” disease. Last week, he spent days backpedaling his challenge to Russia to release more emails about Ms. Clinton. Now, he is clashing repeatedly with a Gold Star family (Khizr and Ghazala Kahn). Granted, conventional wisdom has been consistently wrong about Donald Trump, but I simply cannot see how these statements help him.