It Beats the Good Old Days

There has been a lot of grumbling by commentators about the 1988 Democratic National Convention, much of it driven by nostalgia for what never was, or warm memories of past summer convention battles that led the party to defeat in the ensuing autumns. The critics complain, for instance, that the convention is stage-managed for television and robbed of any real drama. They charge that the technocrat convention managers have “sold the soul” of the Democratic Party in order to have a brief, bland platform that avoids controversy and cannot be attacked in detail by Republicans because there is no detail.

In short, the critics are saying that the national political conventions aren’t like they used to be. Well, that certainly is true. And American voters who value the democratic process should be grateful. If conventions were like they used to be, Ann Richards of Texas probably would not have been allowed in the hall, let alone asked to deliver the convention keynote address. Jesse Jackson never would have had his name put in nomination for President of the United States, or been permitted to make his emotion-stirring speech of Tuesday night. Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis would not have gotten the Democratic nomination with the number of delegates he controlled, unless a handful of party bosses meeting in private willed it so.

Perhaps the most dramatic change since the alleged good old days was on the convention floor. Half the delegates are women. Blacks, Latinos, Asian-Americans and others are represented in proportion to their numbers nationally. There probably is no political body in the world that so nearly reflects its nation’s demographic diversity.

As for the sentiment for the alleged departed soul of the party, as reflected by its platform, that is a longing that harks back to Franklin D. Roosevelt. But take a look at the 1932 convention in Chicago that first nominated him. There were primaries then, too, but the delegates were white males, most of them hand-picked by state delegation chairmen who dominated their decisions. Under the unit rule, an entire state’s delegation had to vote as one. A two-thirds vote of the convention was needed to nominate, giving the balance of power to a handful of pols, and veto power to the conservative Southerners.

In Chicago, Roosevelt won on the fourth ballot after William Gibbs McAdoo launched a Roosevelt bandwagon with the California delegation, actually controlled by publisher William Randolph Hearst. At least two promises of Cabinet seats were made in exchange for other delegate votes. The convention adopted a 2,000-word platform, less than half the length of the 1988 document. It was bland and vague, except for promising drastic spending cuts and a balanced budget. There was no hint of the New Deal programs to follow.

There is less suspense now that candidates compete for the nomination through the direct primary election system. The process is long and laborious. But the candidates are tested openly and fairly. The people participate and make the judgments, if they care to.

The nostalgia for the old days is misplaced. It really is directed at Presidents of the past whose greatness did not emerge until long after they were chosen through a chaotic convention process.