McIver - Is that the Saturday Night Live Character????

The new name in the news is Meredith McIver, a Trump organization ghostwriter.  She has come forward to take the "hit" for plagiarizing Michelle Obama's 2008 speech (so much for Melania writing her own speech.)  When she submitted her resignation, McIver shared that Trump did not accept it, and acknowledged that he returned a statement about .....'people make mistakes...' ..seems a little out of character for the man who made the phrase, "YOUR FIRED..."  a nationwide catchphrase.  Hmmmmm..........

It's pretty clear that the convention speakers are focusing on Hilary and not defining or articulating the Republican Party platform.  While that energy can rally the party troops at a convention, it will be interesting to see if the strategy is having the same impact across the country.  As the marching elephant suggests below, the goal seems to be to 'march across the country' winning over both Republican and undeclared voters to mark their ballot for the Trump/Pence ticket.  Of course, the final assessment of that success is measured in the electorate in November, but it is not clear how effective that is after day three of the convention. 

It would be great if the convention events from both the Republicans and the Democrats would rally an all-time high number of voters to the polls on election day.  I hope the momentum for participation by younger potential voters generated by interest in Bernie Sanders carries interest through to voting day.  Complacency is not a great after-election critique summing up our next president and vice president. 

In presidential elections between 1864 and 1884, the influence of one man who was a political cartoonist was amazing.  We still use many of the iconic images he created over 100 years ago, including the republican's elephant and the democrat's donkey.  It seems as though those reporters giving us a blow by blow of the candidates, conventions, meeting, family members, etc., seek to have that same power of influence to sway the public's opinions and decisions.  Are we more savvy than our ancestors when it comes to knowing the candidates and anticipating how they will handle business and problems in their term of office?  Are the candidates or the parties better at declaring party platforms and anticipated actions for hypothetical future opportunities, problems, and crises?  Hmmmm.....??????