Current status: Still Clevelanding. Tonight, the convention theme is "Making America First Again," which they are marking with speeches by a series of candidates who did not come in first, including Ted Cruz, Scott Walker and (by video) Marco Rubio. You can catch the action live here, at this link. Scroll down for tonight's full lineup, which includes another Trump.

You can catch all The Washington Post's live team coverage of the third day of the convention here, here and here.

(He'd like to talk about her talk, apparently.) (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

Heading into the convention's third night, there are a few reasons we are still talking about what happened on its first, when Melania Trump appeared to re-deliver part of Michelle Obama's 2008 convention address. One of those reasons is Donald J. Trump, who — after aides spent more than a full day urging reporters to move on — decided to spotlight the story himself.

The other reason is the statement by a longtime Trump organization staffer, released by the campaign soon after Trump's tweet, in which that staffer said she had inadvertantly taken some language Melania had said she admired from Michelle Obama's 2008 convention speech and included it in Monday night's remarks.

It was the sort of statement that might — might — have short-circuited most of the controversy within the space of a single news cycle...had it been released early Tuesday morning. Instead, it sparked a new set of headaches. The first had to do with the fact that surrogates and staffers had offered several explanations over the course of the previous day. None of those explanations entirely matched the final version.

Second: the in-house Trump organization writer in question, a former ballet dancer named Meredith McIver, has worked for the mogul for a decade-and-a-half. Her statement was released on corporate letterhead, implying that she remains employed by the company. "If Trump used corporate resources to write a political speech, that could be illegal," writes Philip Bump.

There's also the fact that in the statement, McIver said Melania Trump originally pointed to Obama's comments because she "has always liked" the first lady — and thought enough of her 2008 Democratic convention speech to read portions of it to the writer over the phone. It may be tough to find anyone at this particular convention who shares that assessment — or who might not have enjoyed this week's speech just a bit less if they'd known the source.

Finally: the timing.

"Why did it take so long to get this story out to the public? And why did everyone from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort offer a variety of increasingly implausible explanations for what they had to know all along was plagiarism within their own organization?" asks Chris Cillizza.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump waves to supporters after arriving in Cleveland on the third day of the Republican National Convention on July 20, 2016. (DOMINICK REUTER/AFP/Getty Images)

"...The smart thing to do — and the thing that any even marginally traditional campaign would have done — is rapidly figure out that the blame lies with McIver, release this letter overnight Monday and cast the whole thing as an innocent mistake by a longtime loyalist who was simply trying to help her friend Melania Trump.

"That approach wouldn't have squashed the story entirely on Tuesday. But it would have taken a whole lot of oxygen out of it. By Tuesday night — and certainly by Wednesday morning — the talk of the town would have been Donald Trump Jr.'s terrific speech Tuesday night and how momentum was building to Ted Cruz and Mike Pence Wednesday night.

"Instead, for some unknown reason, the Trump campaign spent all of Tuesday defending a position that they knew they could never hold.  And then they gave up on it. Inevitably.

"None of this plagiarism foofaraw means that Trump is or isn't going to win in November. This episode will be long forgotten by then. But, if conventions are about building momentum throughout their four days — and they are — then the Trump campaign just wasted a very precious 38 hours."

UNDAZZLED:

Cleveland. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

This isn't the most boring event we've ever attended. It isn't the most interesting, either. As befits a Midwestern convention, it is mostly, determinedly, unapologetically...normal, as Karen Tumulty and Jenna Johnson note: 

On Wednesday, Trump returned to Cleveland, descending from the sky onto the lawn of the Great Lakes Science Center in the now-famous helicopter that bears his name. It was a reprise of a spectacle that had dazzled voters at the Iowa State Fair.

But the Trump Show has yet to dazzle — and there have been some moments where it has been almost painful to watch. [Many viewers aren't: the convention isn't doing much for ratings.]

...there have been times when it has been difficult to tell whether anyone was stage-managing the convention. Or even doing the kind of due diligence that might have prevented Trump’s wife Melania from delivering a speech that had been plagiarized from one given at the 2008 Democratic convention by now-first lady Michelle Obama.

Its first night, for instance, ended in a fizzle. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) is considered a rising star of her party, sure to excite the base. But she got a speaking slot at the end, long after most of the seats in the Quicken Loans Arena had emptied.

The figures from sports and entertainment who have shown up on the stage have largely been B-listers. None of them have approached the celebrity status of actor-director Clint Eastwood, who headlined Romney’s convention, albeit in a bizarre appearance where he spoke to a chair.

Each evening has ostensibly had a theme. Monday was “Make America Safe Again;” Tuesday was “Make America Work Again;” Wednesday was “Make America First Again,” and Thursday is set to be “Make America One Again.”

But few of the speakers seem to be bound by those slogans. Tuesday, for instance, most of them focused on making the argument that Democratic nominee-in-waiting Hillary Clinton should be in prison, not on spelling out how Trump would revive the economy and bring back jobs.

Some of Trump’s out-of-the-box ideas, meanwhile, never came to fruition.

During a June 16 rally at a honky-tonk in Dallas, Trump announced that he wanted to host a “winners’ night” during the convention that would feature all of the “champions” who have endorsed him.

“We’re going to have a great convention in Cleveland, and we are going to, I think, have a winners night so instead of politicians, we’re going to have some of these great people,” Trump said. “We have such unbelievable endorsements. So, maybe, I haven’t even asked him yet, but you take a Bobby Knight and you take some of these great winners — they’re winners, there aren’t many winners — you take these winners, and we’re going to have them speak.”

“That,” he added, “will probably be the best-attended night of the whole deal. So we’re going to do that.”

(It may be a show. It isn't 'showbiz.') EPA/DAVID MAXWELL

So far, however, there has been no sign of Knight, the famed Indiana basketball coach.

The name of another sports celebrity, quarterback Tim Tebow, showed up on an early roster for Thursday night. That prompted Tebow to post a video in which he denied it, saying: “It’s amazing how fast rumors fly, and that’s exactly what it is — a rumor.”

Meanwhile, the actual speakers to take the stage have included plenty of party elders and semi-obscure officeholders.

Trump has discovered that it is hard to make something called a convention anything but...conventional.

--Karen Tumulty and Jenna Johnson

Cleveland. (Photo by Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)

Meanwhile, there will be more Trump news sometime Wednesday that has nothing to do with the convention, notes Matea Gold: 

By midnight, Donald Trump’s campaign must file its latest campaign finance report with the Federal Election Commission, a document that will detail the money it raised and spent in the month of June. The filing, which will land sometime during the third night of the Republican National Convention festivities, should answer a few big questions.

1) Did Trump indeed forgive the nearly $50 million that he lent his campaign?

His campaign announced in late June that he had forgiven his loans to his campaign and converted the money into contributions, a bid to reassure donors that their funds would not be used to pay Trump back. The campaign has yet to file paperwork confirming that the loans have been extinguished, but officials said it would be reflected in tonight’s filing.

2) How much money did he raise directly for his campaign, and how much is from small donors who can be tapped to give again and again?

Trump’s campaign had its best fundraising month ever in June, raising more than $52 million in conjunction with the Republican National Committee. But 30 percent of that money came from mega-donors, whose money largely goes to the party committee. While their contributions help fill the RNC’s coffers, some of the money is earmarked for legal and convention accounts and cannot be used for direct political activity.

What we’re still waiting to see: exactly how much Trump raised directly for his campaign, both through the Donald J. Trump for President committee and two joint fundraising committees set up with the RNC. By our calculations, he will report roughly $26 million in contributions from supporters and another $3.8 million that he gave the campaign.

--Matea Gold

MORE OUTSIDE-THE-ARENA ACTION:

A crowd gathered in downtown Cleveland this afternoon. Most probably weren't delegates.

Fight breaks out over flag burning protest at the RNC

(Above: Fight breaks out over flag-burning protest at the RNC)

Ahead of his Wednesday night convention address, Ted Cruz addressed supporters at an event that sure looked a lot like a campaign rally...

...and maybe sounded a little bit like one too.

TONIGHT'S LINEUP:

Cleveland. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Tonight, in honor of the "Make America First Again" theme, the list of speakers is stocked with the Vanquished and the Also-rans: Ted Cruz, Scott Walker and (remotely) Marco Rubio -- who wasn't attending the convention until he was, then wasn't, and now sort of is? -- will address the convention, as will Newt Gingrich. You can find the full convention lineup here.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott

Laura Ingraham
Radio host

Phil Ruffin
Las Vegas casino owner

Pam Bondi
Florida attorney general.

Eileen Collins
Former NASA astronaut

Michelle Van Etten
Organized business leaders for Trump in Florida

Sen. Ralph Alvarado, Jr.
Kentucky state senator

Darrell Scott
Pastor in Ohio. Related: What makes a black Cleveland pastor back Donald Trump?

Harold Hamm
Entrepreneur and oilman

Gov. Scott Walker

Lynne Patton
Vice president of the Eric Trump Foundation

Sen. Marco Rubio

Sen. Ted Cruz

Eric Trump

Newt and Callista Gingrich
 
Indiana governor/VP nominee Mike Pence

Cleveland. EPA/MICHAEL REYNOLDS

YOUR DAILY TRAIL PIT STOP: We do not know why we enjoy Wednesday convention speaker Scott Walker's Twitter account so much. But we do. The Wisconsin governor's social media presence cannot be described — it must be experienced and savored, much like a ham and cheese sandwich. Here's a quick bite.

Note: Due to an error in the official convention schedule, yesterday's Daily Trail originally said former congressman Chris Cox would be addressing the convention. It was the NRA lobbyist of the same name.