Ivanka doesn't go there, and her father's Philly-area fans are OK with that
As Melissa Braithwaite waited for Ivanka Trump to speak on the Main Line Thursday morning, she said she knew what she wanted to hear: "How did she become the woman that she is today?"
As Melissa Braithwaite waited for Ivanka Trump to speak on the Main Line Thursday morning, she said she knew what she wanted to hear: "How did she become the woman that she is today?"
And there was something Braithwaite said she did not care to hear: Mention of the Republican presidential candidate's lewd comments about women, caught on a video in 2005 and made public last week.
"The comments that he made on that tape, that was a personal conversation," said Braithwaite, 46, a stay-at-home mother from West Chester. "I was not offended by that at all."
And she got her wish. Braithwaite was one of more than 1,000 Philadelphia-area voters who flocked to events with Ivanka Trump during her daylong campaign swing through the Philadelphia region on behalf of her father.
Trump praised her father as a "great dad" and said she was confident he would win the presidency - but avoided addressing what has become the most intense controversy to flare in his campaign.
She did not speak about the 2005 video in which her father boasted about kissing and groping women without their consent, or about claims from three women that he assaulted them.
Trump came and left each event though a back door, unavailable to reporters. In interviews, the voters who came to see her speak defended Trump and dismissed the allegations as attacks by Democrats and the media.
Although Ivanka Trump took questions from friendly and supportive audience members, none touched on the issue. The questions - asked largely by local Republican figures - and answers were nearly identical at each stop.
At her first stop, at the Desmond Hotel in Malvern, a question came from Chester County Sheriff Carolyn Welsh: What is your vision for your three children? Trump referred to the way her own parents raised her.
"They didn't tolerate rudeness," she said. "There was sort of an expectation of what was appropriate. . . . They raised us to be sensitive to that."
The 34-year-old mother of three made two other similar stops Thursday afternoon, in Drexel Hill, Delaware County, and in Ivyland, Bucks County. More than 200 people, mostly women, filled each of the three coffee stops.
Thursday night, she was the featured speaker at a private GOP fund-raising dinner of more than 600 guests at a King of Prussia hotel; attendees said she again did not speak about the allegations against her father.
"And I'm glad, actually," said Kelly Ryan of Wynnewood. "I think a lot of voters . . . listened to what she had to say and hopefully were swayed."
Donald Trump has said his words caught on tape were "locker room talk" and has dismissed the allegations that have followed as smears.
Whether Ivanka Trump would address her father's 2005 comments, or the ensuing claims, was on the minds of some who had flocked to see her.
"It kind of has to put the children in a spot," said Lauren Martin, a 30-year-old Trump supporter from Lancaster who came to the Malvern event with her mother. Still, Martin said, "I wouldn't apologize if I were her. It was locker room talk."
Myron Goldman, 74, of Cheltenham, said after Trump's stop in Drexel Hill that he had hoped for a chance to ask Trump's daughter about the videotaped conversation, because he was confident the answer would be: "That's not who he is."
Goldman said the tape was "horrible," but he wishes less attention were given to it in the media and more attention were given to allegations against Bill Clinton that Trump has highlighted.
"I was a little surprised" that she didn't talk about the allegations against her father, said Nicholena Iacuzio-Rushton, a lawyer from Havertown and Trump supporter. "In a way I was hoping to hear a little more . . . but I still was impressed with her."
Lenore Grainger, a software engineer from Langhorne and a volunteer with the Trump campaign, said after the event in Ivyland that it was not necessary for Trump's daughter to address the controversy.
"Hillary Clinton has jeopardized national security, she's corrupt," she said. "And I care about a couple of curse words that Donald Trump said? I don't think so."
The banquet rooms where Ivanka Trump spoke offered a contrast to the large venues where her father typically holds rallies for thousands of supporters. It also highlighted the campaign's outreach to the vote-rich Philadelphia suburbs, where a Bloomberg Politics poll released this week found 70 percent of voters have a negative view of Donald Trump.
But Braithwaite, the stay-at-home mother from West Chester, said she loves "everything about him." She said she had doubts about new allegations from women - published in the New York Times, People magazine and other outlets - who claim Trump accosted them.
"The problem I'm finding now with our media is they're completely biased, and I don't know if these women are being paid," she said.
Trump trails in the latest polls of Pennsylvania voters. An NBC News/Marist poll released Sunday found Clinton leading Trump in Pennsylvania by 12 percentage points.
Diane Collier, 55, of West Chester, said she does not believe the polls.
"The only polls that matter," she said, "are the ones on Election Day."
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