During my time in Denver last week, a lot of friends asked me if I thought the Republican National Convention would display the same level of excitement and energy as the DNC. I predicted that it would look much the same on TV -- that while GOP enthusiasm is at an all-time low, they could surely find 18,000 Republican loyalists who are pumped enough about this election to travel to the Twin Cities, make their way to the Xcel Center, and wave some signs.
But as I noticed watching the RNC proceedings on TV -- and as Matt Stoller confirms -- there were a lot of empty seats in the convention hall last night, particularly in the upper deck. Stoller points out that during the first three nights of the DNC, you had to arrive hours before the primetime program began to get a seat in the nosebleeds. On the night Hillary Clinton spoke, I even had trouble getting a seat behind the stage.
By contrast, here's a photo Stoller snapped during the program last night:
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