Preliminary research: Race inequality, candidate choice top issues for RNC protesters

 

Activist Kathy Wray Coleman, of Cleveland, who was handcuffed by police during a protest at the Republican National Convention on Monday, is transported to an ambulance after she complained of chest pains. Coleman is a leader of the Imperial Women's Coalition. (Photo by Antonella Crescimbeni/Penn State College of Communications)

Activist Kathy Wray Coleman, of Cleveland, who was handcuffed by police during a protest at the Republican National Convention on Monday, is transported to an ambulance after she complained of chest pains. Coleman is a leader of the Imperial Women’s Coalition. (Photo by Antonella Crescimbeni/Penn State College of Communications)

Preliminary findings from political science Professor Lee Ann Banaszak and Penn State students who are polling protesters at the Republican National Convention show that racism and racial equality and Trump as the Republican Party nominee are the top reasons people are taking to the streets in Cleveland.

On Monday — the group’s first day at the convention — the researchers surveyed three events: “End Poverty Now March,” “Stop Trump March” and “America First Movement Rally.”

RNC Preliminary Protester Issues

Very preliminary results showed that “people outside the convention were slightly less diverse than the American population, with fewer Latinos/Latinas and African-Americans than we find in the general population,” Banaszak said. “Nonetheless, racism and racial inequality was the most often mentioned issue among the people sampled outside the convention.”

Lee Ann Banaszak

Lee Ann Banaszak

Additionally, Banaszak said that fewer people turned out for the events on the first day of the convention than originally expected. The event sizes ranged from about 200 to 500 or 600 people and original estimates of predicted turnout had been between 5,000 and 15,000 people, she said.

Members of the research group spoke with 111 individuals on Monday, and 70 percent agreed to be interviewed for the research project. Their work will continue through the end of the RNC convention and into the Democratic National Convention on July 25-28 in Philadelphia.

Banaszak said that the researchers’ survey method is different from past polling methods in that it helps take the personal bias out of the polling. Additionally, some preliminary data will continue to be available quickly because the researchers are submitting their findings through iPhones to a cloud-based database.

Reaction to Melania Trump speech: No evidence to back up her words

Nichola Gutgold | Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences at Penn State Lehigh Valley

 

By all accounts, when Melania Trump finished her much anticipated, well delivered 2016 RNC speech last night, it was considered a great success. Now, the media is focusing on whether or not the speech was a failure because of alleged plagiarizing of Michelle Obama’s 2008 DNC speech.

I believe that the speech is a failure because Melania Trump did not give a full picture of her husband. Donald Trump has no elected experience, has been twice divorced and continually makes inflammatory remarks. Melania’s speech was a moment for the person who likely knows him most intimately — his wife of 18 years — to say that he is thoughtful, tender, kind and honest and to back up the assertions with evidence.

Nichola Gutgold

Nichola Gutgold

She did not do this to the extent that she needed to in order to change his image from boor to a person fit to be president. She said his “kindness is there for all to see” and that it was “one of the reasons I fell in love with him in the first place.” But there were no examples.

In contrast, when Elizabeth Dole spoke in 1996 about Bob Dole, the Republican nominee, who was described by Time Magazine as “the nation’s mortician,” she offered evidence, such as the formation of The Bob Dole Foundation to help people with disabilities.

All the attention is on whether or not Melanie Trump plagiarized Michelle Obama’s speech, which is probably the fault of a sloppy speechwriter. But the true failure of Melania Trump’s speech is that she needed an illustrative story or two to prove Donald Trump’s “goodness of heart” beyond having well-educated, impressive children of his own.

The Survivor: Clinton outlasted the Benghazi committee, the latest iteration of a time-honored Washington tradition

Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton
Credit: Marc Nozell/Flickr

Lance Cole, Penn State’s director of the Center for Government Law and Public Policy Studies at Dickinson Law, is featured in this article at U.S. News and World Report. Below is an excerpt of the piece:

Lance Cole

Lance Cole

“When it comes to the House Benghazi enterprise, ‘To quote Yogi Berra, “It’s déjà vu all over again,” ‘ says Lance Cole, who runs the Center for Government Law and Public Policy Studies at Penn State University’s Dickinson Law School. Given the muddle of congressional investigations, maybe it’s apt that he uses a Yogi-ism that Berra both denied ever saying but also took credit for later in life. ‘There’s a Clinton running for president and a Republican committee in Congress releasing a report aimed at destroying a Clinton,’ says Cole.

“He speaks with a certain sense of history. He was deputy special counsel for the minority Democrats on the mid-1990s Special Committee to Investigate Whitewater Development Corporation and Related Matters that was run by the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs led by then-New York Republican Sen. Al D’Amato.”

Read more at U.S. News and World Report.

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