If presidential conventions determine outcomes, this election is over. Fortunately for Democrats, and to the vexation of Republicans, presidential nominating conventions lack such power.

The contrast between the Democratic and Republican conventions could not be clearer. A space alien watching them would think each party represented warring planets.

Democrats spent four days telling Americans of an unfair, racist country that must be repaired by nominee Joe Biden — a career politician who would begin the job at age 78. Biden addressed the convention once for a relatively brief speech that generated mixed reviews, mostly positive against a backdrop of low expectations.

The convention included a litany of multimillionaire celebrities telling minorities and poor people their best hope rests in the hands of politicians assisting them with programs and financial stipends. It was a message advocating a culture centered on government, and a message more against Trump than in favor of Biden.

Republicans spent four days talking about the failures of Democrats in a country full of hope, success, and unlimited opportunity for people of all races and socioeconomic backgrounds.

For four days, the Republican convention featured a litany of ethnically and racially diverse speakers who turned the mainstream media's portrayal of President Donald Trump and his supporters as xenophobic racists into shredder scraps. It just doesn't hold together when some of the president's proudest, most articulate and impassioned supporters are Latinas, Latinos, Blacks, and immigrants from around the globe who are grateful to him.

The barrage of minority support was simply too great, too credible, their stories too compelling and their lifestyles too diverse for critics to label them tokens or worse.

"They will say that to their detriment," said former Colorado Senate President Bill Cadman, of Colorado Springs, who watched Trump's acceptance speech Thursday at a gathering of nearly all Colorado Republican delegates in Windsor. "The Democrats showcased politicians. The Republicans showed us people with real stories, and these stories did not begin three weeks before the convention."

Colorado Republican delegate Maria Del Carmen Guzman-Weese, a Cuban immigrant who escaped communism, teared up when talking about Trump's doctrine of America first.

"This country restored my freedom," she said during a conversation in Windsor. "If we lose this country as we know it, the entire world suffers."

Speaking for four days at the convention were people who grew up in hardship, who would likely be Democrats 30 years ago.

"The Democrats still assume that Black people will vote for them, no matter how much they let us down and take us for granted," said Kim Klacik, a Black candidate for Congress, who runs a nonprofit for disadvantaged women in Baltimore. "Nope! We're sick of it and not going to take it anymore."

Alice Johnson, a Black woman sentenced to life plus 25 years for a nonviolent first offense, spoke on the final night to thank Trump for granting her clemency after 24 years in prison. She thanked him for enacting criminal justice reforms that have helped others in similar circumstances.

"When President Trump heard about me — about the injustice of my story — he saw me as a person. He had compassion. And he acted," Johnson said.

Several Black Trump supporters seemed annoyed and motivated by Biden's infamous claim that "you ain't Black" if you're not voting for him. It could become Biden's version of Hillary Clinton's politically fatal "basket of deplorables" comment, if not worse.

"The Democratic Party does not want Black people to leave the mental plantation they've had us on for decades," said Democratic Georgia State Rep. Vernon Jones. "... I am part of a large and growing segment of the Black community who are independent thinkers. And we believe that Donald Trump is the president that America needs to lead us forward."

Sen. Tim Scott, R-South Carolina, told of his Black family going from the cotton fields to Congress in one lifetime because of American principles Trump defends.

When the first evening ended, Black civil rights and criminal defense attorney Leo Terrell — who for years defended liberal Democratic politicians and policies — asked for a ballot immediately so he could vote for Trump. Terrell recently went from vociferous Trump opponent and a lifetime of Democratic activism, only weeks ago, to Trump defender after Biden's "you ain't Black" statement.

Catholic nun Dede Byrne, a military veteran and medical doctor, spoke of Trump as a president more defensive of unborn life than any president in history.

No one should be surprised that a Republican convention would attempt to counter the narrative that casts Trump as a self-serving, elitist, uncaring person who can't see the struggles of common people. Many would be surprised to see the convention successfully skewer that narrative of the mainstream media and other left-wing establishments.

During his acceptance speech concluding Thursday night, Trump defined the difference between him and Biden as the difference between freedom and socialism, a pro-American agenda and an anti-American agenda. He declared "Biden is weak."

"How can the Democrat Party ask to lead our country when it spends so much time tearing down our country?" Trump asked, prompting delegates to suggest he drop the mic and walk off the stage.

Republicans, Trump and his supporters could not have produced a more convincing and powerful convention. If conventions elect presidents, Trump gets four more years. They don't. Fifty state elections will decide who wins in November. In days ahead, polls will indicate whether Trump's dramatic convention will narrow Biden's lead.

REPRINTED FROM THE COLORADO SPRINGS GAZETTE

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