Lis Smith Says Holding In-Person Democratic Convention in August is ‘Simply Delusional’

Former Pete Buttigieg communications director Lis Smith said holding the already postponed Democratic National Convention in August would be “simply delusion” and compared party conventions to “the TV equivalent of Ambien” on Morning Joe Monday morning.

“Even though the Democratic leadership hasn’t said we’re going to a virtual convention, let’s be real: that’s the direction we’re heading,” Smith said. “The idea that we’ll be holding an in-person convention is August is simply delusional. However, I do think the Democrats again can use this to innovate.”

The DNC, which was scheduled to happen in mid-July, was postponed until August 17 after several states backed out of their primaries. In April, President Donald Trump said there is “no contingency plan” for the Republican National Convention that it will happen in late August.

Even in March, several members of the DNC told Politico they were skeptical that a convention would happen in 2020. Smith said she believes neither conventions will occur on full scale and that this can be an opportunity for parties to try a different format during the pandemic.

“It’s 2020, it’s not 1960. We need to be doing something differently,” Smith said. “To me as someone who’s been to many of these conventions, I feel like part conventions are the TV equivalent of Ambien. They put people to sleep. We did not need hours and hours of talking point primetime speeches anymore.”

“We could see entertainment skits, we could see discussions and interviews in addition to speech after speech behind a podium,” Smith continued. “This is a time when we should be calling the best and the brightest, the most creative minds in our party together to help us fast forward to 2020 and get out of the old way of doing thing.”

Watch above, via MSNBC.