News Analysis - Rating the First Day of the Democratic Convention

Day one of the 2016 Democratic National Convention is done. How do the Democrats do? Let's not forget the conventions are primarily about communication to voters, undecided voters as well as committed voters. They are essentially infomercials. I don't mean that in a negative way for both the Republican and Democratic parties. How did the Democratic Party do first day? I give them it's a mixed rating. I would give them a B minus. The media is always looking for ways of painting a story of symmetry of both parties are the same. Republicans certainly had a lot of dissent at their convention in Cleveland. Many, many people vocally opposed to Donald Trump. So the media was primed for a similar story at the Democratic convention and they got it. Bernie Sanders supporters booed every time Hillary's name was mentioned early in the first day. Not so much in prime time, but enough to generate a lot of negative stories throughout the day. And that cannot have made the Democratic Party or Hillary Clinton happy. Beyond that, there were the visuals of people putting mask over the or tape over their mouth saying that they have been essentially muzzled and shut up by the dnc. Not a great visual for the TV cameras for the Democratic Party and Hillary what they wanted. So that part was mixed. There were also some cheers and taunts during the primetime messages of Elizabeth Warren, for example, saying we trusted you, implying that she had betrayed her supporters by now endorsing Hillary Clinton. So there was definitely negative. Plus the whole brouhaha over the email release. Tens of thousands of emails released through WikiLeaks of embarrassing things going on at the Democratic Party. Although as someone who's been involved with politics my whole life, I can't imagine that there are equally embarrassing emails of any and every political party around the world. To me the surprise so far has been that there hasn't been anything that strikes most people as outright corrupt, but anyway embarrassing nonetheless, resulting in Deborah Wasserman Schultz, the chairman of the party, having to step down. Obviously not the way anyone wants to start a party with your national chairperson having to essentially flee the town. So that part was negative. On the positive side, absolutely fantastic speeches from a structural standpoint, messaging and delivery standpoint from Cory Booker, the Senator from New Jersey, Elizabeth Warren, the senator from Massachusetts, Michelle Obama, the first Lady, Al Franken, first time he's been funny in like a decade. The Senator from Minnesota, Sarah Silverman, the well known comedian who was a Bernie supporter and now supports Hillary. When it comes to the faces and the messages that came out of the main primetime hour when it's broadcast to most of the world extraordinarily positive. I really do not think that the Obama team, the Clinton team, or the Democratic National Party could have hoped for anything better than what voters and viewers saw in primetime. So as I say, a bit of a mixed bag. I think the primetime speakers were certainly better than most people anticipated and the crowd was very, very enthusiastic. They were not disruptive. And if you want more analysis of the particular speakers, I've done an analysis of every single of the main primetime speakers. You can see that in earlier episodes here. By the way, I've changed the format of the show. In case you're paying attention. I was for the first six months of this program doing everything in sort of an evergreen non based, non specific to the news. I've now decided I'm just going to do both. Many of you wrote to me, emailed called saying you really like the analysis of political speakers, people in the news in real time. So I'm going to just do both. If you like it, please let me know. Or if you don't like it, let me know. Send an email tjediatrainingworldwide.com Please if you like this program and haven't rated it on itunes, it would really help if you could do so that attracts the itunes algorithm and lets them put this in front of more people. So please rate this program. If you're watching it on YouTube or Facebook, please post a comment. I'm TJ Walker. Thanks for joining me.