"Plagiarism"
Did she or didn't she? Did Melania Trump plagiarize a significant portion of Michelle Obama's speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention? Reports early this morning which analyzed Mrs. Trump's speech from last night noticed the striking resemblance between her speech during the first night of the Republican Convention and the speech Michelle Obama gave which helped nominate her husband. (If you somehow didn't hear about this story today check out this article which clearly explains what happened). But more importantly, will this blunder matter to the Trump campaign? Does this hurt Trump's image in a way that he will not be able to simply brush off as he has done with so many other instances in this political cycle? If the Trumps eventually end up in the White House next January will this and other unfortunate speeches hurt Melania as a First Lady and make her seem less credible than First Ladies of the past? It seems as if this oversight was just that. A poorly planned speech that was not looked over by professional speech makers and was therefore analyzed by the press for the mistakes woven in it.
"Hillary Clinton"
If you thought that the Republicans would go easy on Clinton during this convention you must be living in a fantasyland. It appears as if each speaker in some way tried to increase her negative ratings in any way they could. From Donald Trump Jr.'s speech alone, he tore into the Benghazi scandal pointing out the irony of Clinton's 2008 "3 AM" campaign ad and the fact that she did not answer that most important call. Watching post convention coverage on MSNBC tonight Rachel Maddow and Brian Williams reported that the most used words were "Hillary," "Clinton," "America," "Trump," and "Donald" during tonight's Republican convention. Of course next week during the Democratic Convention, the Democrats will surely tear into Trump in the same way. But what does it say of our political system where the most effective campaign strategy comes in the form of driving up the negative ratings of the opposite candidate? What happened to a convention where speeches were driven by a party platform that made policy proposals about how to make our country an even better place to live? Call me crazy but I believe that the average American does care about a variety of policies that affect their everyday life from education reform to healthcare to homeland security and that they are waiting for a politician to truly listen to these feelings instead of harping on the failures of others.
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