New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s speech to the Republican National Convention got a lot of ink and airtime from the establishment media, and it was interesting and even entertaining, but it wasn’t the most important speech delivered during Tuesday night’s session of the Convention.
Nor were the speeches of the other politicians, such as the despised Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the all-but-invisible Senators Ron Johnson and Shelly Moore Capito and the foot-in-mouth House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy.
Having them on the stage was a bow to necessity. Since the establishment GOP still controls the levers of power at the Republican National Committee, accommodations of this nature had to be made, but what they said was of little consequence to the big picture of what Donald Trump and his team are doing this week.
And about the best we can say is that they didn’t get in the way.
Yesterday, we explained that what Trump is doing this week is an exercise in branding, and that among the key elements of the strategy is non-verbal communication—that the messenger is the message.
So our nominee for most important speaker of the Tuesday evening session was Tiffany Trump.
Surprised? You won’t be if you start to think in terms of branding and communicating with market segments, instead of delivering lectures on policy and politics.
Watch Tiffany Trump’s speech and her body language through this link and read the text here.
“His desire for excellence is contagious,” she said. “He possesses a unique gift for bringing that trait out in others, starting with those closest to him.”
“He’s always helped me be the best version of myself. By encouragement and by example, he motivates me to work my hardest and stay true to who I am and what I believe,” she added.
“That’s what he does. He draws out the talent and drive in people,” she said, saying it’s a quality great for a dad, but also a plus for a president.
One point in the speech that resonated with our small CHQ informal focus group was that Tiffany Trump held on to all her report cards, “Some dating back to kindergarten,” she claimed. “Because I like to look back and see the sweet notes he wrote on each and every one of them.”
“Contrary to what you might expect from someone who places an emphasis on results,” she said, “my dad’s comments referred often to the sentiments expressed by my teachers on how I acted in and out of the classroom, not just even focusing on the letter grades themselves.”
“In person my dad is so friendly, so considerate, so funny and so real,” she said.
“My friends walk away with a glimpse of all that he is and all that he means to me,” she continued. “Of the strong, protective, kind, endearing man I am so proud to call my father.”
Then, as The (U.K.) Daily Mail’s Nikki Schwab put it, “the 22-year-old circled back to where the story began.”
“I never pictured saying all this to a packed arena,” she said, adding that she was grateful to do so.
“I have admired my dad all my life,” she said.
“And I love him with all my heart.”
It almost didn’t matter what she said, her job, performed with poise and precision, was to communicate that one simple concept—I love my Dad and he loves me.
While it is counterintuitive to cultural conservatives, given Donald Trump’s three marriages and checkered love life, the broader culture sees the Trump family as a great success, and that is an important part of the Trump brand.
And in a society where half the marriages end in divorce, the Trump brand is focused not on offering mea culpa to social conservatives, but on communicating with those in the broader culture who have been educated by popular entertainment to believe that the most enduring measure of the success of a family is the love between its members.
This is an important part of the Trump brand for another reason—it has a market all its own outside of typical political reporting and it should not be ignored that in addition to the usual establishment political media Tiffany Trump’s speech was covered by People, Cosmopolitan, Teen Vogue and other non-political fashion and pop culture outlets.
The DC talking heads will no doubt argue over which politician hit Hillary Clinton the hardest or the policies and details in half-brother Donald Trump, Jr.’s speech, which was a barn-burner and associated Trump with policies important to center-right voters, particularly parents and Second Amendment supporters.
But in a campaign that is all about communicating brand before policies and ideas Tiffany Trump’s remarks stood out as what may very well be the first speech about love delivered to a national political convention and for that distinction we deem it the most important speech of the evening.
George Rasley is editor of ConservativeHQ, a member of American MENSA and a veteran of over 300 political campaigns, including every Republican presidential campaign from 1976 to 2008. He served as lead advance representative for Governor Sarah Palin in 2008 and has served as a staff member, consultant or advance representative for some of America’s most recognized conservative Republican political figures, including President Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp. He served in policy and communications positions on the House and Senate staff, and during the George H.W. Bush administration he served on the White House staff of Vice President Dan Quayle.
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