CHICAGO — The political star power and unity on display at the Democratic National Convention, where Bill and Hillary Clinton, Barack and Michelle Obama praised Vice President Harris, stood in stark contrast to the divisions within the Republican Party led by former President Trump.
Former President Clinton became the third Democratic president to speak at Chicago’s United Center on Wednesday, but the Bush and Cheney families did not attend the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
No one attended the memorial for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who was the party’s nominee in 2008. Neither did Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who was the party’s nominee in 2012 but has said he will not vote for Trump.
Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, also will not be in Milwaukee, and has said he will vote for someone other than Trump in the presidential election.
Indeed, the Republican Party endorsed Trump as its candidate at its convention last month, just days after the former president survived an assassination attempt while rallying in Pennsylvania. That week in Milwaukee, Republicans appeared united behind Trump for the first time in a long time, while Democrats seemed hopelessly divided over the fate of President Biden.
It’s amazing how much can change in a month.
With Biden out of the race and Harris emerging as the nominee, it is the Democrats who are winning the battle for unity.
Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster and one of the architects of the 1994 Republican revolution that catapulted House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) to power, said that while the Milwaukee convention was all about Trump, the Chicago convention was more like a “campaign.”
“One is about the individual, the other is about the movement,” said Luntz, who was in Chicago on Wednesday to moderate a panel discussion on promoting career-technical education in high schools.
“And at the end of the day, movements often work. That’s why Harris is doing so well and yet not doing so well,” Luntz added. “With Harris, there are a lot of people in the same position. With Trump, it’s just Donald Trump.”
The rallying of Democrats behind Harris has been fuelled by the recognition of some of the Democratic Party’s biggest stars of the past, including Clinton and Obama.
“Kamala has the character, experience and vision to move us forward. I know her heart and her integrity,” Hillary Clinton declared Monday night.
The former first lady and secretary of state seemed genuinely enthusiastic, even delighted, about Harris becoming the first female president of the United States, something she herself had wholeheartedly hoped would happen in the 2008 and 2016 elections.
Former President Barack Obama gave Harris an enthusiastic endorsement on Tuesday night, declaring that “Kamala Harris is ready to get the job done.”
“She’s someone who has spent her life fighting for people who need a voice and an advocate,” he said.
In Milwaukee, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana), who has been in office for just under a year, called on the party to “unite” and “send President Donald Trump back to the White House.”
But Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the longest-serving Senate Republican leader in history and who played a major role in confirming the three Supreme Court justices nominated by President Trump, attended but was not given time to speak.
Former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the 2012 Republican vice presidential nominee who helped pass Trump’s signature legislative achievement, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, skipped the event entirely, despite being from nearby Janesville, Wis.
He has decided to boycott any Trump-centric conventions in early 2023, telling a local TV station: “If it’s not who Trump is, I’m here.”
Republican strategists said Trump would have benefited from inviting some of his party’s bigwigs to the Republican convention in Milwaukee, arguing that they would have helped persuade “Trump-skeptic” Republicans to vote for him.
“The Republican Party has changed dramatically under Donald Trump,” said GOP strategist Vin Weber.
Weber noted that the Republican convention in Milwaukee was a euphoric moment for many Republicans.
“When the Republican Convention came around, people were saying the party had never been more united,” he noted.
But that unity did not include key Republicans whom Trump has frequently criticized, such as former President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Bush has not attended a Republican convention in person since 2004, when he was renominated for president.
Cheney’s daughter, former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), was notably nowhere to be seen in Milwaukee. She is a prominent Republican critic of Trump and served on the congressional committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Her differences with Trump have effectively ended her political career.
Other prominent senators, including Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine), also skipped the celebration.
Weber said Trump might have been saved if George W. Bush or other prominent Republicans with strong credentials in the Reagan-Bush wing of the GOP had shown up in Milwaukee to support him.
“There are a lot of Republicans and independents out there who are skeptical of Trump, and the Trump campaign should have tried to convince them that it was okay to vote for Donald Trump,” he said. “That would have been to their advantage.”
“But I also have to look at the other side of it, which is, I don’t think it’s just that they weren’t invited. I think the animosity is so strong that a lot of them wouldn’t have attended,” he said of former Republican leaders such as former President Bush and former Vice President Cheney who were effectively ousted from the MAGA-controlled Republican Party.
The question now is whether Democrats can stay united through November, and whether their fight for unity will make a difference when voters go to the polls this fall.
