Convention not fraught with conflict

Several hours before Donald Trump became the Republican Party’s official presidential nominee on Tuesday, two prominent North Idaho Republicans reflected on their experiences at the national convention in Cleveland.

Brent Regan, chair of Kootenai County’s Republican Central Committee, and Jennifer Locke, who volunteered for the Trump campaign in Idaho, each said in telephone interviews: The national media hasn’t painted an accurate picture of events at the convention.

Regan said he was on the floor of Quicken Loans Arena Monday and he later watched coverage of the day’s events on CNN and MSNBC.

“I was shocked. You would think, according to them, the world had split in two,” Regan said.

Speaking of a failed attempt by several states to force a roll-call vote, Regan said to succeed they needed seven states with the proper number of signatures and only had six.

“That was just a tempest in a teapot,” he said. “… All the footage you saw on the cable networks was all the footage there was. The whole thing was over in about three minutes.”

There were two protesters who were quickly and efficiently escorted from arena, because individual signs are not allowed into the area, Regan said.

Norm Semanko, former chair of the Idaho Republican Party, wrote a blog post from the convention about the media’s focus on the procedural snafu that felled the roll-call vote effort.

“It was very clear to most everyone on the floor that the vote was on the rules and the rules committee. But the media reported it as an attempt by anti-Trump people to ‘Dump Trump,’” Semanko wrote. “While there are certainly a handful of delegates who are firmly, perhaps almost recklessly, dedicated to making sure that Donald Trump doesn’t get the nomination, that is not the sentiment of the large majority of the delegates who are here to make meaningful changes to how the Party operates. However, the fringe minority has commanded the media’s attention, which is unfortunate because the real story is left untold.”

Regan and Locke, both Trump delegates, each said all Idaho delegates are doing their best to work together and are getting along well.

The Idaho delegation comprises 20 delegates pledged to Cruz, who won the Idaho primary in March, and 12 Trump delegates.

“There are some folks that weren’t satisfied with the results along the way, and they’d like to have seen things go a different way, but we’re past that,” Regan said. “I was a Cruz supporter right up until Trump won the delegates. Would I like things to be different? Maybe. But everybody’s got to get used to the idea...Republicans have to get behind him.”

Locke said she and others disagree with a report from an Idaho delegate who said the convention isn’t exciting.

She was on the floor Monday when Trump made a brief appearance with his wife, Melania.

“I’ve never seen him in person before, but it was an incredible energy,” Locke said.

She said she spoke with two Idaho delegates who were at the 2012 convention when Mitt Romney was nominated. They told her this convention is “off the charts” in comparison.

“They gave Mitt a five, and gave last night a nine,” Locke said.