Donald Trump’s 2016 Republican convention carries slapdash, jury-rigged feel

Ed Rollins has always been a political brawler, and he’s known as a good quote.

So when I spied the 73-year-old GOP insider who served as national campaign director for Reagan-Bush 1984, I had to ask him:

What did he think about Monday night’s prime-time speaking schedule that was to focus on national security?

After all, the evening’s lineup features Melania Trump, the presumptive nominee’s wife who’s best known as a one-time model. We’re told she’s pretty sharp but is probably not an expert on terrorism and troop levels and the NATO alliance and police body cameras.

Rollins was unruffled. No less a figure than Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor who won a hero’s plaudits for his handling of the Sept. 11 attacks, had been added to the bill. Giuliani, Rollins said, would carry the day’s message with great authority.

“It’s going to be more of a law-and-order night,” Rollins said.

Rollins is right. The GOP doesn’t have a better speaker on security and law enforcement issues than Giuliani, who would almost certainly wind up in a Trump administration as Homeland Security secretary or another top post.

The amazing thing is, though, Giuliani’s name didn’t show up in any Monday night lineup the media were given heading into this first day of the convention. We were told the speakers would be Melania Trump; retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn; Iowa freshman Sen. Joni Ernst, who’s one of the few U.S. senators in the city to back Donald Trump; Jason Beardsley; and U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke of Montana.

I had never heard of Beardsley, who Republicans describe as “a veteran who is currently an adviser for a group called Concerned Veterans for America.”

Flynn, a Democrat who was considered for vice president, is a former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Whatever. You can’t help but draw the conclusion that this convention is unlike any of the other 10 or so national confabs I’ve covered. There’s a slapdash, jury-rigged vibe about this one that has convention delegates scratching their heads, too.

When’s the roll call for the GOP nomination? No one’s quite sure, though Clay Barker, executive director of the Kansas GOP, just told me it appeared to be Tuesday.

“I just found out when I read the order of business here,” he told me from the convention floor.

When’s Trump himself speaking? Two weeks ago, the word was he’d be out front each night. Then we were told he’d speak Monday night and maybe another time or two.

“I am the law-and-order candidate,” Trump said in recent days in a message he’s sure to repeat here.

The fact that we don’t know exactly when Trump speaks might wind up boosting TV ratings for the entire shebang as curious viewers tune in to see if they might catch the one-time reality TV star.

What about a detailed schedule of the week’s events? Kansas delegate Helen Van Etten wanted one because her husband is in a wheelchair, and a schedule would help her navigate the week.

But she couldn’t get one despite repeated requests.

Said Barker, “I can never tell if they’re holding it back or fine-tuning final changes.”

Stephen Maynard Caliendo, a political science professor at North Central College in Naperville, Ill., and a former Avila University professor in Kansas City, also is puzzled.

“This is my seventh national convention, and I’ve never seen one where there’s a feeling of scrambling as much as this one,” he said.

Caliendo said he suspected the Trump people were having trouble corralling people to speak. So few of the usual suspects — members of Congress, governors and high-ranking partisans — are even in Cleveland this week.

“It’s very disorganized,” he said. “It’s embarrassing.”

Trump repeatedly promised the country, and the delegates who assembled here, a great convention and a great time. That his team hasn’t released a detailed lineup of what’s happening or when is probably only an issue for those who made the trek here.

Most voters will judge Trump and his campaign by what they see on TV each evening or in news clips.

But the up-in-the-air nature of this gathering says something about Trump and the way he leads, which is often by instinct and by however he feels from moment to moment.

It hasn’t hurt him so far, and it may not hurt him now, either.

But more than a few Republicans just want to know what’s happening 15 minutes from now — or even if they have time to run over to the nearby Rock and Roll Hall of Fame without missing anything.

This story was originally published July 18, 2016 at 2:31 PM with the headline "Donald Trump’s 2016 Republican convention carries slapdash, jury-rigged feel."