Trump Goes Off the Rails. This Guy Is Still Beatable.

In my 20 years of covering presidential campaigns as a journalist, there have been just two political conventions where the presidential nominees, their teams, the delegates and the party spent all four days radiating the confidence of a winner.

The first was the Democrats’ in 2008 with Barack Obama — I’ll never forget how everyone I spoke with was certain of victory in November. The second one was the Republicans’ this week in Milwaukee, where Trump supporter after Trump supporter calmly, clearly insisted that Donald Trump would win this November.

Don’t get me wrong: Many of the convention speakers spewed grievances to tear down Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and there was a certain fraudulence to the whole event — with Republicans lying about their war on abortion rights by censoring any talk of it, and misleading the audience about the economy, immigration, crime and more.

But the tone and tenor of the convention were ecstatic about Trump, who was portrayed and praised as a man who survived an assassination attempt by the grace of God and emerged as a “lion” (a word used multiple times this week).

The only problem, in the end, was Trump himself.

For three nights he took in more adulation than he’s ever gotten in his life. He looked tired and bored at times, but mostly he looked pleased with himself, loved by his party while Democrats were abandoning their presidential nominee.

Then, on the fourth and final night, Trump took the stage, and at first he held the audience in his hand as he told the story of the assassination attempt.