Keller: Will Trump's former opponents help unite more moderate voters behind GOP ticket?
The opinions expressed below are Jon Keller's, not those of WBZ, CBS News or Paramount Global.
BOSTON - A show of unity at the Republican National Convention Tuesday night, as former opponents of Donald Trump dominated the program. But will their words help unite more moderate voters behind the ticket?
We asked Massachusetts GOP Chair Amy Carnevale if the unity Trump has been advocating was limited to the party itself. "I think the unity that President Trump was calling for was within America," she said.
But while the hyper-partisan crowd in Milwaukee is eating up the convention buffet so far, we wondered how more-moderate swing voters are reacting to the right-wing red meat Sen. Ted Cruz was serving up last night as he spotlighted citizens "murdered, assaulted, raped by illegal immigrants that the Democrats have released."
A bit on the dehumanizing side? "Certainly, there's segments in Congress that talk about migrants and immigration in different ways than I would as a party leader in Massachusetts," said Carnevale.
Haley endorses Trump at RNC
"President Trump asked me to speak to this convention in the name of unity," said former Trump challenger Nikki Haley in her convention speech. Her anti-Trump campaign won her 37% of the GOP primary vote in Massachusetts last March, but last night she enthusiastically backed him.
How can a political figure like Haley have any credibility when they spend months and millions of dollars pronouncing Trump unfit and then endorse him? Says Carnevale: "A decision like that is made within the context of the choices available."
And while hardcore conservatives loved the addition of Sen. J.D. Vance to the ticket, he is a booster of Project 2025, the far-right blueprint for a second term drawn up by Trump allies that Democrats have jumped on as frighteningly extreme, prompting Trump to aggressively distance himself from it.
"There's certainly aspects that would go beyond something that I personally would advocate," says Carnevale.
The voters Trump, Vance need
In Massachusetts and other states where independents could vote in the Republican primary Haley won a majority of them. And she did well among suburban Republican women.
Those are precisely the voters Trump and Vance need to lock down in the fall.
So, will the tone of this convention make that harder? It might, but remember the infamous line about Mitt Romney shaking up his campaign pitch post-convention like an Etch-a-Sketch?
There's plenty of time for Trump to do the same. And if the main topic come voting time is Joe Biden's fitness for a second term, the job will be much easier.