Essential Politics: Conventions over, the 14-week sprint begins
Democrats headed home from Philadelphia today feeling they had pulled off a successful and persuasive four-day convention.
We’ll find out soon if they were right.
Good afternoon, I’m David Lauter, Washington bureau chief. Welcome to the Friday edition of our Essential Politics newsletter, in which we look at the events of the week in the presidential campaign and highlight some particularly insightful stories.
THE PHILADELPHIA STORY
There were protests by Bernie Sanders delegates and occasional off-message comments by surrogates; memorable moments and, as always, many, many forgettable speeches.
But, overall, and by comparison with the deep and bitter split in the Republican Party, the Democrats’ week in Philadelphia was, mostly, an exercise in brotherly love.
From Michelle Obama’s stirring speech on the convention’s first night to Bill Clinton’s telling of his wife’s life story on the second to President Obama’s passing of the baton on the third, the gathering’s highlights went off about as well as a convention planner could expect.
No amount of professional stagecraft or polished speech writing can save a political party, however, if voters simply don’t buy what they’re selling. At a time that many voters crave a change of direction, the Democrats faced the difficult task of defending the status quo while still promising to improve it.
The awkwardness of that straddle could be seen, for example, by comparing the tone of Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s keynote speech on Monday to President Obama’s farewell address to the convention on Wednesday.
“Americans bust their tails, some working two or three jobs, but wages stay flat. Meanwhile, the basic costs of making it from month to month keep going up, housing, healthcare, childcare, the costs are out of sight. Young people are getting crushed by students loans. Working people are in debt. Seniors can’t stretch a Social Security check to cover the basics. And even families who are OK today worry it could all fall apart tomorrow. This is not right. It is not,” Warren declared.
And the president: “I stand before you again tonight, after almost two terms as your president, to tell you I am even more optimistic about the future of America than ever before. How could I not be, after all that we’ve achieved together? After the worst recession in 80 years, we’ve fought our way back. We’ve seen deficits come down, 401(k)s recover, an auto industry set new records, unemployment reach eight-year lows, and our businesses create 15 million new jobs.”
Hillary Clinton, in her acceptance speech, and, indeed, throughout her campaign, did her best to meld those two.
“Our economy is so much stronger than when they took office,” she said, referring to Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. “Nearly 15 million new private sector jobs, 20 million more Americans with health insurance, and an auto industry that just had its best year ever. Now, that’s real progress, but none of us can be satisfied with the status quo, not by a long shot.”
“We’re still facing deep-seated problems that developed long before the recession and have stayed with us through the recovery,” she said.
And she added this appeal to disaffected, economically stressed voters: “Democrats, we are the party of working people. But we haven’t done a good enough job showing we get what you’re going through, and we’re going to do something to help.”
Did it work?
As the convention began, Donald Trump was enjoying a good-sized bounce in the polls. This morning, in our USC Dornsife/L.A. Times “Daybreak” tracking poll of the election, we could see the first signs of the trend line starting to turn and Trump’s bounce waning.
Democrats — and the rest of us — will have to wait a few days to see how big a shift will now take place.
The poll gets updated every day, so keep checking back.
The convention week featured a few other subplots, many of them unexpected.
There was, for example, the spectacular irony of Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a supporter of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, effectively killing it. McAuliffe on Tuesday made a comment suggesting that Clinton, who has opposed the TPP, might seek to renegotiate in some minor ways and then push for the agreement’s approval. That, of course, is exactly what opponents of the trade deal have worried about and what Trump has warned would take place.
To head off a potential problem, the Clinton campaign dispatched some of its top officials and surrogates to stomp on the idea and the TPP itself. Campaign chairman John Podesta declared that Clinton was not interested in renegotiating. Campaign manager Robby Mook stressed that Clinton “is not going to support TPP after the election.” And economic adviser Gene Sperling, declared TPP to be “in the rearview mirror.”
When it was all over, as Lisa Mascaro reported, TPP seemed to be all but dead.
While that played out, another international drama impinged on the proceedings — the disclosure of Democratic National Committee internal emails by WikiLeaks and the strong possibility that the documents had come to light as the result of a hacking attack by Russian intelligence agencies.
The emails, themselves, were mostly boring and banal, and the few that were not, containing intemperate remarks about Sen. Bernie Sanders, were more juvenile and embarrassing than venal. They became enough of a flashpoint, however, to prompt the Clinton campaign to throw the party chair, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, overboard, as Mike Memoli reported.
Meantime, however, the alleged Russia connection gave Democrats an opening to go on the attack against Trump, implying that he was the beneficiary of — and perhaps the dupe of — an effort by the Kremlin to interfere in a U.S. election. As Mark Barabak noted, it was a mind-bending switch from decades in which Republicans wielded fear of Moscow as a club against Democrats.
There was more, of course. Here are a few excellent pieces that my colleagues produced over the past several days. If you haven’t already read them, they’re well worth your while.
Evan Halper and Joe Tanfani checked in on the wining and dining scene here in Philadelphia. Out on the streets, delegates are protesting the influence of big money in politics. But inside the city’s swank restaurants, lobbying, networking and the genteel peddling of influence continue apace, they found.
Cathy Decker took a look at the complications of having a former president as First Spouse. There are quite a few.
Bill Clinton, of course, is only one of the all-star Democratic figures lined up behind the party’s nominee. No other nominee in the modern era has enjoyed the kind of support from the incumbent president — not to mention a former president — that Clinton can call on. Her list of top-level surrogates — “the Ubers,” campaign aides have dubbed them — is without precedent, but not without complications, as Memoli reported.
I’ll tout one story of my own. It looked at a central dilemma for Republicans: Can Donald Trump add to the party’s ranks, or does he just chase away existing Republican voters just as fast as he brings in new, non-traditional ones?
Is the party “adding, or just adding and subtracting?” as House Speaker Paul Ryan put it. I took a look at the existing evidence on that question, which could be key to the election’s outcome.
Finally, if you haven’t read Decker’s daily analyses of the convention’s proceedings, you should. Here’s Decker’s look at the gathering’s final day.
DON’T FORGET THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE
The popular vote is all very well – just ask Al Gore – but gaining the presidency requires winning enough states to get 270 electoral votes. How to get there? Play political strategist for yourself, and try out as many scenarios as you like on our electoral map. Next week, once the convention bounces settle out, we’ll be updating our own view of the map. So stay tuned.
QUESTIONS ABOUT TRUMP, CLINTON? WE’VE GOT ANSWERS
Where they stand on issues, what they’ve done in their lives, their successes, their failures, what their presidencies might look like: We’ve been writing about Clinton and Trump for years, and we’ve pulled the best of that content together to make finding what you want to know easier. So check out All Things Trump and All Things Clinton.
LOGISTICS
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That wraps up this week. My colleague Christina Bellantoni will be back Monday with the weekday edition of Essential Politics. Until then, keep track of all the developments in the 2016 campaign with our Trail Guide, at our Politics page and on Twitter @latimespolitics.
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