INDIANAPOLIS — There was one clear winner at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last week, and it wasn’t Donald J. Trump or even JD Vance. It was former Indiana Republican Chair Anne Hathaway.

Hathaway chaired the RNC’s arrangements committee and thus was responsible for convention logistics and optics. On the latter, the video presentation on the stage, the jumbo screens and lighting, and the programming were excellent.

Hathaway welcomed delegates on July 16. “Over the next few nights you are going to hear from the best and brightest from our party and our movement have to offer,” she began. “From candidates to elected officials, to leaders, business luminaries, to grassroots activists, to everyday Americans who power our party, united in our common goal to make America safe again, to make America wealthy again, to make America strong again and to make America great again.

“Teddy Roosevelt famously said, ‘It’s not the critic who counts. The credit belongs to those who are actually in the arena, whose faces are marred by dust, sweat and blood.’ Ladies and gentlemen, this is the arena,” Hathaway continued. “Just by participating in this convention, whether you are a speaker or a delegate or a viewer at home, you have the ability to engage in the fight for a better future for our children. 

“So I ask you, as you watch this convention and hear these incredible speakers over the next few days, to listen, to share the message that resonates with you and your friends and your families and to help us channel the incredible energy of this convention into a resounding victory in November, up and down the ballot, starting with electing Donald J. Trump as president and JD Vance as vice president,” Hathaway said. “Make sure your family, friends and neighbors are registered to vote. Get your yard signs. Make a plan to get to the polls. The fate of the free world depends on us giving everything we’ve got and making sure we elect America-first candidates up and down the ballot to every office.”

Indiana delegate Mary Trausch-Martin put it this way on Facebook: “Someone I truly admire is Indiana’s very own Anne Hathaway. She works her ass off 24/7 for not only the Indiana Republican Party, but the national Republican Party. Her goal was to keep us safe and provide us with a fabulous delegate experience.”

Former legislator Kevin Mahan added, “I want to put a shout-out to Anne Hathaway for a great job on the RNC convention. I know you put your heart and soul into this big event for a long time. A historic event that will be remembered for decades! You should be proud that your fingerprints will forever be left in Milwaukee!”

Ohio delegate Carol Porter added on Facebook: “From my zip code this week, the RNC was a triple home run!!! The Gold Star Families, the music, the overall programs, the numerous motivational testimonials, the staging and arena … what an awesome accomplishment you led!”

Former RNC Committeeman John Hammond III, who also served on the arrangements committee, told State Affairs/Howey Politics Indiana: “The 2024 Republican convention went off without a hitch and has been widely hailed as the best in recent memory for GOP delegates. This was all due to Anne Hathaway.”

Hammond continued, “She was born to do this job, and the trajectory of her career inside the RNC led her to this moment. She did an extraordinary job, all while serving as the interim chair of the Indiana Republican Party for 10 months. Remarkable.”

Anne Applebaum, writing in The Atlantic, observed, “The Republican convention was a carefully curated, meticulously planned presentation.”

But Hathaway’s slick presentation may have been squandered by Trump, who entered the hall to the tune of James Brown’s misogynistic anthem “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World.” It was a curious music choice for the first post-Dobbs presidential election where abortion restrictions vs. rights could determine who wins in November.

In an election that could be decided by independent suburban women, RNC viewers instead were treated to Hulk Hogan and Kid Rock and then a rambling 93-minute acceptance speech by Trump.

“I am running to be president for all of America, not half of America, because there is no victory in winning for half of America,” Trump said early on in what was a pitch for unity. “So tonight, with faith and devotion, I proudly accept your nomination for president of the United States.”

He described the assassination attempt on him in Pennsylvania on July 15. “As you already know, the assassin’s bullet came within a quarter of an inch of taking my life,” Trump told the rapt audience. “So many people have asked me what happened: ‘Tell us what happened, please.’ And therefore, I will tell you exactly what happened, and you’ll never hear it from me a second time because it’s actually too painful to tell.

“I’m not supposed to be here tonight. Not supposed to be here,” Trump said. 

The audience responded, “Yes, you are!” 

Trump added, “And I’ll tell you, I stand before you in this arena only by the grace of almighty God. 

“The attacker in Pennsylvania wanted to stop our movement, but the truth is, the movement has never been about me — it has always been about you,” Trump continued. “It’s your movement; it’s the biggest movement in the history of our country by far. It can’t be stopped. It has always been about the hard-working, patriotic citizens of America. For too long, our nation has settled for too little. We settled for too little. You’ve been told to lower your expectations and to accept less for your families. I am here tonight with the opposite message. Your expectations are not big enough.”

Thus, the first 30 minutes of Trump’s speech were riveting. But the final hour turned into a typical deflating Trumpian stream of consciousness. 

“They’re destroying our country. We have to work on making America great again, not on beating people, and we won,” he said. “We beat them all, we beat them on the impeachments, we beat them on indictments, we beat them.”

It all petered out as the 78-year-old Trump, now the oldest presidential nominee in history, digressed from his prepared remarks. “They’re coming from prisons. They’re coming from jails,” he warned, in echoes of his 2016 “I alone can fix it” speech in Cleveland that prefaced his first “American carnage” term. 

“They’re coming from mental institutions and insane asylums,” Trump droned on. “I — you know the press is always on me because I say this. Has anyone seen ‘The Silence of the Lambs’? The late, great Hannibal Lecter. He’d love to have you for dinner. That’s insane asylums. They’re emptying out their insane asylums. And terrorists at numbers that we’ve never seen before. Bad things are going to happen.”

CNN reported there were 20 false claims in the speech, while The Washington Post described it as “a nod to unity, same dark themes.”

It prompted Bill Kaplan to write in a WisPolitics column: “The coronation of Trump at the Milwaukee GOP Convention took place after the horrifying near-assassination of Trump by a registered Republican with unknown motives. It was Trump first and America last: ‘There was blood pouring everywhere, and yet in a certain way I felt very safe because I had God on my side.’ Unlike Lincoln’s 2nd Inaugural Address, only a morally blind politician such as Trump has the temerity to claim God is on their side.”

Trump promised delegates he was “only going to use the term once” in reference to “Biden.”

Two days later, President Biden was gone, folding his reelection bid after saying earlier this month he could leave the race due to word from “God almighty.”

Vice President Kamala Harris, a former prosecutor, is poised to win the Democratic presidential nomination in August. At her Wilmington campaign headquarters on Monday, she said she took on perpetrators of all kinds during her long career as a prosecutor. “Predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain,” she said. “So hear me when I say: I know Donald Trump’s type.”

And that gets us to the other RNC optic that contrasted with the GOP’s long adherence to advocacy for the so-called rule of law.

Trump has been convicted of 34 felonies and is scheduled to be sentenced in a Manhattan court in September. He is the first former U.S. president to face criminal charges. RNC speakers included former Trump economic adviser Peter Navarro, who showed up at the convention hall straight after being released from prison after a contempt of Congress conviction for ignoring a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“I went to prison so you won’t have to,” Navarro declared. He received a standing ovation from delegates.

Wandering the convention floor was former 2016 Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, who was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison on charges including bank fraud, tax fraud, money laundering and witness tampering. Trump pardoned Manafort in 2020, calling him a “political prisoner.” So, too, was Roger Stone, also convicted and pardoned after the congressional investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Missing was Steve Bannon, another former adviser, who reported to federal prison on July 1 for a Jan. 6 contempt of Congress conviction.

Most curiously, also seen was former Democratic Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, convicted on 17 criminal charges, including bribery, fraud and extortion, stemming from an attempt to sell Barack Obama’s former Senate seat. President Trump commuted Blagojevich’s 14-year sentence in 2020.

Brian A. Howey is senior writer and columnist for Howey Politics Indiana/State Affairs. Find Howey on Facebook and X @hwypol.

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — The inspirational keynote speech at a national political convention 20 years ago was instrumental in bringing a landslide election of a president, even though the presidential nominee of that convention went down to defeat.

That speech was delivered on July 27, 2004, by Barack Obama, then a little-known state senator from Illinois. Yes, a state senator. He had not yet been elected to the U.S. Senate. His name was funny sounding, his governmental credentials slim.

While most Americans couldn’t recall the names of other past keynoters for any Democratic or Republican convention, most of those who listened to Obama’s speech will never forget it.

The speech, drawing a wildly enthusiastic response from Democratic National Convention delegates in Boston and from viewers nationally, had these memorable lines:

“There’s not a Black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America.

“The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into red states and blue states — red states for Republicans, blue states for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don’t like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states.”

To rising cheers, Obama said that even though Americans could differ on war in Iraq, “We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the Stars and Stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.”

After a time of hope and seeming progress, it appears that Obama has been proven wrong, the pundits proven right.

There is a Red America, a Blue America, more brightly colored and divided now than when Obama spoke so hopefully about a united United States.

Enthusiasm for Obama and his message didn’t propel John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, to victory over President George W. Bush in 2004.

It wasn’t Obama’s fault that Kerry lost. It was Kerry’s fault that he blew a lead over a president with lagging popularity.

The inspiring keynote — Obama telling of living the American dream, with his diversity of heritage — was about the only convention speech drawing much enthusiasm around the nation.

Kerry strategists assumed mistakenly that they should avoid anything negative that might alienate voters. All speakers were ordered not to attack President Bush and take a positive approach. They did. Positively boring for many watching the convention on TV.

Kerry expected the traditional bounce in the polls after a convention. No bounce. He actually dropped in the Gallup poll.

Bush successfully went on the attack. The Republican convention, with strong mockery of Kerry and Democrats, did get some bounce.

Even Kerry’s service in Vietnam was ridiculed. He didn’t hit back, assuming nobody would believe that stuff. But Kerry’s high-road approach came across for many voters as haughty, out of touch. Negative works. 

After that keynote speech, Obama’s political future was bright. He won for the U.S. Senate in Illinois while Kerry went down to defeat. Obama for president? Well, 2008 seemed too soon. But still.

Not every Democrat was thrilled with Obama’s sudden rise to stardom. Not Hillary Clinton. And I recall that Indiana delegates at the convention, though hailing the great keynote speech, lamented that Obama’s star could be rising higher than that of Indiana’s own Sen. Evan Bayh, also viewed as a rising star.

Obama wisely didn’t wait. He ran for president and won in 2008. He won by more than 2 to 1 in the Electoral College. He even carried Indiana. Yes, Indiana.

If he had not been a surprise pick to deliver that keynote speech or if it had been a more typical convention speech, he would not have had that opening to run in 2008. Maybe later. Maybe not.

What would be the reaction now, 20 years later, to a convention speaker, either party, saying there are no red or blue states, just a red, white and blue United States? 

Jack Colwell has covered Indiana politics for over five decades for the South Bend Tribune. Email him at [email protected].