Sweet: Getting to know Donald Trump

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CLEVELAND — As Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort put it, the “primary purpose of the convention is to expand awareness of who Donald Trump is.”

Perhaps you’re chuckling now. As if, you are saying to yourself.

Who doesn’t know about Trump, who becomes the GOP presidential nominee on Thursday?

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani delivered the stemwinder of the night, mounting a mighty defense for his fellow New Yorker. “I am sick and tired of the defamation of Donald Trump by the media” and the Hillary Clinton campaign.

At a Bloomberg News breakfast Monday, Manafort said the Republican convention will make more people pay attention to Trump “in a different way than they’ve had in the political process leading up to it.”

Giuliani helped soften the ground for the family act that is playing out in Cleveland.

Trump’s third wife, Melania, and three of his adult children, Eric, Donald Jr. and Ivanka, have major speaking assignments this week. The kids all work for Dad and have emerged as key advisers. Until now, Melania has been mostly mute.

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The prime time programs for this week are designed to show those other sides of the self-absorbed and boastful Trump, as well as build the case against Democrat Hillary Clinton.

One of the snappier zingers aimed at Clinton on Monday came from Colorado GOP Senate contender Darryl Glenn, who said Clinton needs to swap her pantsuit for an orange jump suit.

On a more serious note, a heart-rending attack at Clinton came from Pat Smith, whose son Sean, was one of the four Americans killed in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012.

“I blame Hillary Clinton” for “the death of my son . . . she deserves to be in stripes.”

You see the Clinton-should-be-in-prison theme here.

Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., and his reality show star wife Rachel Campos-Duffy, made their national debut as a tag-team act in slamming Clinton as a liar when they pretended they were telling their kids the house rules. “No private servers in the basement” and “no lying,” especially to the FBI.

The boycott of the convention by the biggest GOP names — the two former President Bush’s and the 2008 and 2012 nominees, John McCain and Mitt Romney — may not be meaningful by the end of the week.

Duck Dynasty star Willie Robertson said Trump is about “regular folks.”

That’s a point that needs underscoring. Trump turned out voters, regular Americans, who, unlike himself, are not elites.

Said Manafort, “The goal of this convention is not to talk about growing the party as much as it is identifying who Donald Trump is. That’s the objective of this convention.”

A Twitter List by Suntimes