Democracy, theyre all on the ballot. Who we are as a nation, what we stand for, most importantly who we want to be, thats all on the ballot. Paul lets bring in wall street journal columnist and deputy Editorial Page Editor dan henninger, columnist kim strassel and Editorial Board member kyle peterson. Dan, i think the message of this convention to me boils down to character and covid19. That is the democrats trying to make the case that trump failed in controlling the pandemic and the reason is his flawed character. Did they succeed in delivering that message well enough in your view and strategically, politically was it the right message . Daniel yeah, i think so. What the heck . They could not have possibly have overstated it one speaker after another went after donald trump. I believe joe biden opened his address last night by describe ing a season of darkness which sounds to me Netflix Series rather than political campaign. [laughter] daniel this is a poll tested convention, make no mistake about it based on 3 things. The direction of the country, some 70 of americans think the country is on the wrong track. Donald trumps handling of coronavirus, about 58 disapprove and the president s disapproval rating is about 42 . In other words, it is all about donald trump individually, not so much policies, they didnt talk about that too much but peoples anxiety over pandemic, over coronavirus and over donald trump personally and thats the message they trough over and over again and ultimately i think it comes down to in terms of the election, look, theres 6 or 7 states that are going to determine this and the question is do more than 50 of people in those states share their anxiety about donald trump personally, that was the message. Paul kim, i want to ask you what you thought about bidens speech in particular because he drove home that character message obviously, but the president has been calling him sleepy joe for a long time. Did biden overtime that with a forceful, confident articulate delivery . Kimberley well, here is the good news if youre a Biden Campaign person which he got through it without a stumble, okay, that was a big question that night because hes had very uneven performances and some really Big Questions about his mental acuity, so he did fine on that score, and if the goal was to get across joe bidens character, i think he did it in a forceful way, you know, he certainly came across as somebody who was a nice guy, a guy who cares about other people, hes very sympathetic figure and they highlighted a lot of the tragedy that he had in his life and painted this lightdark message as you said. I think the question, though, if you are an undecided voter and you were watching it, it was very hard to see the speech and not notice that there were no specifics, there was no conversation at all about what that future looked like in terms of policy and that was really striking to me because you had a convention in which everybody had been devoted to attacking donald trump left the field wide open to joe biden to describe his future in detail and he didnt go anywhere near it. Paul well, kim, let me push back, they did talk about some issues in broad terms, they had the packagedissue pieces on gun control, for example, and biden in his speech focused on the six things i think it was that he will do specifically to get covid under control. That was where he really hit hard and i think that suggests to me that they think thats biggest trumps vulnerability, was biden specific enough for you on that point, covid19 . Kimberley yeah, he certainly talked about this but they are making a big bet that this issue would be topmost in peoples mind as we get close to the election, maybe it will. Also making a bet that people believe that a pandemic is something that a politician can actually control. Im not really sure about that either and even on those issues that did come out, paul, that they put out there, it wasnt dishonest handling in my mind. Without talking with any of the things that people will also confront like for say with climate, joe biden talking about jobs, jobs and not the fact that he will put the fossil fuel section out of business and what that will mean to the economy and i think those raise a lot of questions that republicans have an opportunity to drill into. Paul kyle, one of the other things that struck me, the emphasis of voting, get out, you have to get out, cant Hillary Clinton was explicit, cant make the same mistake as 2016, was this a reflection that maybe democrats are worried about enthusiasm for the ticket or is this just all about 2016 . Kyle i think enthusiasm is part of it and concerns whether or not donald trump has said that he has said that whether he will accept results of the election, we will have to see. I think theres some concern there among democrats and also that makes for a pretty good line if youre attacking the sitting president as a wannabe authoritarian. Paul thank you all, still ahead, we will talk more about this. Some republicans touting joe biden and some moderate at the Week Convention but will he govern that way and a closer Liberty Mutual customizes your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. I wish i could shake your hand. Granted. Only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. 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Paul that was vermont senator and former president ial candidate Bernie Sanders on the first night of the Democratic National convention touting the progressive issues and policies that the heart of the bidensanders unity platform and giving voters a glimpse of what a biden presidency would look like. So kim, you mentioned the policy vacuum in this convention. Well, bernie tried to fill it right there and he followed by 25 minuteson kasich, the former republican governor of ohio saying i know joe, hes not going to veer left like some people fear but bernie kind of said, yeah, he is. Who do you believe . Kimberley it was whiplash and you would come away on what to think and i think that was the goal of the Democratic Party to make sure nobody knew what joe stood for to potentially vote for him. They had the give Bernie Sanders the spot because bernie needs to tout to progressives in the party that he had pushed joe to his side of the political aisle and they had adopted these policies. Paul hold it, kim, is that right . Is bernie correct or is he or is he just patting himself on the back . Has biden moved in sanders direction . Kimberley substantially, yes, when you have last had a nominee instead of moving to the center looked to the loser of the nomination and said, please, dictate my policy agenda . This is what joe biden did to try to keep the progressives in his party on side, and so, yes, it is one to have most radical policy agendas ever presented to america. You didnt get a full picture of that over the convention this week but berniey was bernie was doing his best to tell his voters thats the side he was in. Paul where if you were trump would you go after . Daniel well, i would certainly go after them on the economy, thats trumps strong suit. If i heard Mike Bloomberg he said economy was stronger in obama years than trump years, thats factually untrue and they have also tried to blame all of the unemployment during the pandemic on donald trump as though he personally caused all of these lockdowns which he did not and i think they are weak grounds on the economy, tieing totally to the last 5 months of the pandemic rather than previous 3 years when the economy was manifestly strong, so theres really a story for trump to tell and for the Trump Campaign to tell if they will put those numbers and figures in front of people about what the first 3 years of the Trump Presidency did, in fact, do for black americans, hispanic americans, but they will have to lay out a vision as well for what they plan to do to pull us out of this pandemic, linking recovery from the pandemic and economic recovery i think is going to be a key thing that the Trump Campaign has to do now. Paul kyle, what about the attack of the president s handling to have virus . Do they have to mount a significant defense of that on a factual level saying, look, we did this, this, this and this and joe biden isnt proposing all that much different . Do they have to be that much granular on this . Kyle i think that would help. Democrats gave President Trump an opening because they were touting the Obama Administration handling of ebola and saying ebola never became a pandemic and i think thats a mistake. Its a different disease. If you look back at quotes from 2014, president obama is warning people not to panic saying that in order to get ebola you have to be in contact with the bodily fluids of somebody showing symptoms and fauci is saying unlikely theyll be an outbreak in the u. S. I think the democrats have given President Trump on opening to go on counterattack that they didnt really need to. Paul kim, what are the other openings here for the republicans you think on issues . Kimberley so definitely on energy. You know, i thought it was really notable that they were out there talking about this magnificent vision of of a green new future as millions of californians are out of power sitting in the dark because they have already adopted that strategy and we know where it goes, so the republicans can talk about that. They can talk about constitutional rights, in particular we had they had a package about gun control, but not really mentioning what that would mean to peoples Second Amendment rights, but i think one of the most powerful things, paul, is talking about joe bidens embrace, Barack Obamas embrace of getting rid of filibuster in the senate and what that would allow democrats to do structurally Going Forward, stacking the supreme court, for instance, unilaterally changing Campaign Finance rules to silence political opponents, theres a lot of mischief that could happen overnight and quite scary changes so those would be where i would go. Paul all right, thank you all very much, when we come back President Trump delivers a blistering attack on joe biden in the democratic nominees hometown, so is that a preview of whats to come as republicans kick off their convention on monday and will the message monday and will the message resinate to swingstate i need it so bad dont call it a hobby. Its way more than just a job. This is how we live every single day. Can we go and play . roaring of engines i needed to try needed to fall i needed your love im burning away i need never get old vo im burning away because we know you want to get back to going your speed. Steering life at 10 and 2. Youre prepared for this. And so are we. Soon youll get back to skipping the counter without missing a beat. Back to choosing any car in the aisle. Back to being the boss of you. Go national. Go like a pro. Simon pagenaud takes the lead at the indy 500 coming to the green flag, racing at daytona. Theyre off. In the kentucky derby. 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You want a vision of your life under biden presidency, think of ruins in minneapolis, the violent anarchy in portland, the blood stain sidewalks of chicago and imagine the mayhem coming to your town and every single town in america. Paul President Trump on thursday just outside of joe bidens hometown of scranton, pennsylvania playing up the theme of law and order as he attacked the democratic president ial nominee and painting a grill picture of American Life under a biden administration, so will that message resinate with swingstate voters and should we expect more of the same at the Republican Convention next week . Lets ask republican pollster robert, senior strategist at the group, one of the few polls that correctly predicted that President Trump would win michigan and pennsylvania in 2016. Welcome, good to see you. First let me ask you about the Democratic Convention and what do you think about their strategy, their message and how effective was it . First of all, good to be here. Second, the strategy of their convention, i thought the convention was effective, you know, whether they drew a lot of viewers, i guess the jury is still out on that. You know, we have data but we also dont know as much about online views and things so whether people watched it is still up for debate but whether those who did watch it were effective at it, i think it was effective. I like the state to state roll call and something that people look forward to the convention and i thought that was very effective. The other thing they did and i think they did this well, they curtailed some of the extreme positions and they presented a much more even kilterred imagine, a minute for a second speech. They did a good job of painting the image of biden that they wanted to paint and i think it was effective and the real question is, is the Republican Convention going to try to take apart biden which is a heavy lift and take him apart as a person and much easier to create an image of what it would look like if he wins, what the result of that would be. Paul i want to talk about that given all the focus that democrats had on joe bidens character and i know that some in the white house want to go after biden personally and they want to bring up hunter biden and play at that, for example, it seems to me thats going to be a hard case to make particularly going after joe biden personally. Would you advice them to do that, go after the issues here and talk about talk about the fact that maybe the convention was a disguise on policy and try to go after the democrats on that ground . Robert i absolutely agree with that. First of all, im not in any position to give them advice but if i was, i know that you have people that want to go attack biden, it is hard to watch him being painted the way hes been painted, to hear the stories and all the kind things that were said and a lot of the examples of his behavior that were absolutely true, its a really hard to do that, but to talk about that result and talk about, you know, what things have happened, look around the summer and compare it and create a sense of responsibility that that is what his side wants. I think its much more effective and, you know, i dont know what side is going to win. I mean, thats the advice i would give, but im not sure what they are going to do. I think it would be detrimental to try to take apart a personal narrative when they can talk about all the things that seem to be frustrating people especially many that have happened in the last 3 to 4 months with cancel culture, riots, defunding the police, tearing down statutes, declaring that the mount rushmore, all that stuff is where they should keep their fight but as far as their convention paul yeah, go ahead, let me ask you about that because one element of that, thats the economy because its coming back but, of course, the democrats as you would expect focused on the downside, all of the lost jobs and so on, should trump offer a vision with policies of how to come back out of that and is that is that something thats absolutely essential for next week . Robert i think it is and i think he needs to do a hybrid of the are you a better off now than you were 4 years ago. I would almost go off with were you better off before the coronavirus than 4 years ago, im the only guy who can bring you back there. Paul right. And i want to ask you about your polling a little bit here just because, you know, whats different about your samples than so many of the other mainstream polls that have you have race closer than most of them. Robert its not just samples, its the entire methodology. What that means is when people when you have a live person on the phone, they dont want to be judged by the person asking the questions, and so they tend to give an answer they think that will make them, you know, look best in that light. Its kind of like confronting the little child with face full of crumbs and asking did you eat the missing cookies, they will give you the answer thats going to give them in least trouble. Starting we dont do it that way, we believe the more anonymous the poll can be presented to them, the better, we use some live but mostly digital, calls delivered to people over text and email, give them lots of different ways to reply and make sure that you the thought of them that they are participating