Dennis Welch, the longtime political reporter and host of “Politics Unplugged” on Arizona’s Family stations in Phoenix, had never covered a national political convention in person.
He picked a good one to start with.
Welch was at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, covering the Arizona delegation. Obviously, in the wake of the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, the party’s nominee, things changed and got ratcheted up. The party had already been remade in Trump’s image; after the shooting in Pennsylvania, the convention took on almost Biblical trappings.
Welch, who will also cover the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August, took some time to talk about the event Thursday before he headed off to watch Trump’s acceptance speech. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Question: The obvious question — how is it so far?
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Answer: It's interesting. I mean, the delegates from Arizona are pretty open to talking to us. I mean, a couple of people don't want to talk to us, but that's just normal in life, right? But you go up to them on the floor, the delegates, tell them who you are. They’ll talk to you. It’s pretty great. … There's no shortage of opinions on politics with these folks, man, because these guys, they eat, sleep and breathe politics.
Q: Who are they?
A: A lot of the delegates, they're not household names. They're not typically, like, public elected officials for public office. I mean, they're elected delegates and stuff like that. But these are just folks who, like I said, work for the party, eat, sleep and breathe politics. And you go down there and talk to them, and they want to talk to you.
Q: What all have you reported on?
A: You know, we did a story yesterday, because there were some reports about the location of the Arizona delegation being in the back of the room, and part of the seating was like in this kind of little, like, tunnel-closet thing. And I don't know if you saw the story, but some of the views are obstructed. We were talking to a couple of guys about it, and they were just having fun with it. They're saying, “Well, yeah, it's really good if you want to develop film back there.” So it's been, it's been interesting.
Q: What’s the general vibe like?
A: The vibe there is people are just excited and they're pumped. You talk about coming in a couple days after this assassination attempt. If anything, they're just more, I don't know what the word is, like, more excited about what's going on. I mean, because Trump comes out every night and he sits in the same area and watches the speeches of the night. And when he comes on the floor, I mean, there's a new energy in the room. The vibe changes and there's just a palpable energy that takes over.
Q: You say you don’t know what the word is. At least on TV, it appears that the word might be “cult.”
A: For me, I stay away from using terms like "cult" and stuff like that. It's up to people to decide how they want to think about this. But it is different, because, the rhetoric here seems so much more heated. Again, I've not covered a convention in person, but I've watched them. It's always been, “The other side is bad and terrible and bringing down America.” But the arguments were different. Think about 2012, with (Mitt) Romney and (Barack) Obama. It was basically, a campaign over finance, over economics, over tax rates. It's very different than what you're hearing today, which is all about, “They're ruining the country.” That’s one of the messages that we keep hearing over and over — that the media is dividing us, those kinds of things. The arguments are just very different. I mean, it seems like Obama-Romney was 100 years ago, right?
Q: It does — 2020 seems like 100 years ago.
A: Yeah, yeah, 100%.
Q: So have you gotten to see Milwaukee at all?
A: No, no. They’re long days, and there’s a lot of security.
Q: What’s your day like there?
A: Our programs start around 7 (p.m.). The delegation shows up maybe two hours, maybe an hour before, and that's when we really start grabbing interviews, when we really want to talk to the delegates and see what they think and listen to what they have to say because, you know, we're an Arizona TV station and we want to try to bring to our viewers what our Arizona folks are doing, experiencing, what they have to say. We're not, you know, CNN or NBC or the networks, trying to break down the whole political process and races and stuff like that. So like, let's, give our viewers a glimpse into what the Arizona delegates are doing.
Q: What’s the floor like?
A: You literally will bump into a (former House Speaker) Kevin McCarthy here on the floor, so you have to be ready to ask him a question that makes sense, that's not some dumb question. You will at this convention run into like someone like a Kevin McCarthy or Matt Gaetz on the floor. I mean, we ran into Newt Gingrich on the streets in downtown Milwaukee before we got into the convention center. That's kind of what it's like down here.
Q: Let me ask a question your bosses probably won’t but should. Are you having fun?
A: I’m having a blast, man! Like I said, everybody has been really super cool. Security is tight, but they're not obstructive or anything like that. The people here, it’s a big party for them. They're having a great time. And we're getting people to talk to us as reporters. That's all you want.
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Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. X: @goodyk. Subscribe to the weekly movies newsletter.
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