Steve Yates, Idaho GOP chairman and a delegate at the Republican national convention in Cleveland, says he’s been impressed with the convention thus far. “This is so much better organized and better funded than anyone can have any conception of in our humble environment,” said Yates, who’s attending his first national convention. “The scale of the events, the scale of security, the production of the speeches, all the planning that goes into it – I’m frankly in awe of what they’ve been able to pull together.”

He was unfazed by the ruckus on the convention floor yesterday over a rules vote. “The fact that you might have differences of opinion on rules and processes and platform plans, that’s just a part of political life,” he said.

Yates particularly noted “a very high degree of coordination between the Trump campaign and the RNC,” and said, “The production values of the events last night I thought was really strong. The messages last night were compelling.” Melania Trump’s speech, he said, “was received by people in the arena as heartfelt and interesting. … I thought she presented the message very, very well.”

For the Idaho delegation, he said, “We are here to basically get inspired and mobilized and come back to our state. We’ll be taking messages from the national party platform and some of the key things from our convention and sharing them.” At this point, he said, “We’re one day into a four-day process of really charging our batteries.”

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