Conventions: They ain’t what they used to be. And in Dick
Rosenbaum’s opinion, that’s too darn bad. He should know; he was
Chairman of the Rules Committee during the GOP convention of
1976.
“Conventions are relevant, but they’re not very relevant,”
Rosenbaum, author of No Room For Democracy: The Triumph of Ego
Over Common Sense told TAS in a phone interview. Like
a lot of folks who were active in politics in those days, Rosenbaum
can hardly keep the stories to himself. They remind him of what
used to be. And of what he’s missing now.
One month before the 1976 convention, Nelson Rockefeller, the
Vice President under Gerald Ford at the time, wrote Rosenbaum a
three-page letter voicing his concerns about the selection of the
Vice Presidential candidate at the upcoming convention. The letter
signaled a shift in convention operations.
Reagan had just chosen Senator Richard Schweiker to be his
running mate, a bold, and some thought, an unwise move, because of
his Schweiker’s liberal reputation. As predicted, some delegates
changed their votes to Ford after hearing about Reagan’s
choice.
Party activists tried to convince Rosenbaum and others to change
the convention rules to force Ford to announce his Vice
Presidential choice before the presidential roll call vote like
Reagan had. “Rockefeller was much opposed to that,” Rosenbaum
recalled from the letter. Ultimately, the resolution to keep the
rules the same prevailed and Ford won the nomination in a close
vote.
“As primaries have proliferated the nominees are obvious before
they get there so conventions have lost a lot of their meaning.
What they really have become is cheerleading sessions. There’s no
contest any more. I liked it more with the fight,” Rosenbaum
said..
THOSE ARE THE days that were. Now: Since presidential nominees have
largely been assumed at national political conventions for some 30
years, it’s hardly a new concept to question the relevance of such
conventions.
But this year, the price tag is significantly higher, so the
ante is upped, and the questions are too. Certainly, if a
Presidential election is the Super Bowl of politics, then the
Democratic and Republican National Conventions are very expensive
and predictable tailgating parties. Both Denver and St. Paul, the
sites of the Democratic and Republican National conventions
received a $50 million federal grant for security; along with $16.8
and $16.3 million in federal grants, respectively, for planning and
execution.
There are 6,430 delegates total, attending both conventions.
That’s about $20,699.84 in taxpayer dollars per delegate. On top of
this, Host Committees will have raised $40-58 million in private
funds.
Indeed, national political conventions have changed a lot since
the 1952 Democratic National Convention when it took three ballots
to nominate Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois. Now, with no
financial limits, the Democratic National Convention Host Committee
has concerned itself with such important details such as mandating
all eating utensils be recyclable, fried foods be absent and the
food (which should be local or organic) be “at least three of the
following five colors: red, green, yellow, blue/purple, and
white.”
This year, journalists hoped in vane for a brokered, or
contested convention. Even the possibility of reporting an actual
floor fight sounds more like the glory days than discussing food
regulations.
Still, Dr. Angela Ledford, an associate professor of political
science at the College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York, believes
a bit of a history perspective might prove useful for hopeless,
convention-romantics.
“Sure, the conventions were there to choose the nominee for the
respective parties, but it was also a very elitist
institution….It used to be real party elites, almost all
men….Party platforms were being crafted and deals were being made
in arguably a very unDemocratic way. This wasn’t ‘People
Power,’ this was elite, political party power,” Ledford said.
While the nominee may be determined in a bit more democratic way
than in the mid-20th century, David Johnson, a Republican
strategist and CEO of Strategic Vision based in Atlanta, Georgia,
believes the difference in conventions between past and present
hurts the voters more than anything and the media has played an
important role in that transition.
“Now: Everything is ironed out before hand because they know the
media will be covering it. They don’t want to highlight the
differences. Everything is vanilla now. [Conventions] have become
the political version of reality TV,” Johnson lamented.
HOWEVER, DESPITE THE way conventions have strayed from their
original purposes, many believe nominating conventions are still
important. They provide the candidate with a bump in his poll
numbers, a vehicle through which to communicate to a large audience
and they act as one large, political pep rally, energizing the base
and communicating their message to millions of voters watching
across the country.
Jim Lehrer, host of PBS’s popular NewsHour with Jim
Lehrer, attended his first convention in 1968 and agrees while
they are very different in terms of purpose, they are the same in
terms of impact.
“[The convention] catches the attention of the decided and
undecided voter: It affirms, it confirms and it firms,” Lehrer
explained. “So it’s there for everybody. If you’re already a big
Democrat or Republican you want to see what your people are up to.
Can they articulate the message? How do they do it?”
While the convention costs to the taxpayer are extravagant, and
the original intent is obsolete, many believe this high tech
tailgating party still serves an important role in Presidential
politics.
David Mercer, Democratic Strategist and President of Mercer and
Associates summarized the ideal modern convention like so: “[You]
get party business done, celebrate together, you raise the
enthusiasm and the excitement and you establish a marker in the
mindset of the American people to capture their imagination that
will thrust you forward and that will launch you into the general
election.”
Of course, that’s the one that really matters.
