Wrasslin’ With the Republicans

More than anything else, this Republican national convention reminds me of the pro wrestling matches I liked to watch as a kid. In particular, it takes me back to how cheated I felt after somebody finally let me in on the Big Secret.

The blood streaming from Haystack Calhoun’s lip? It came from a capsule. The vicious knee-drop Pepper Gomez laid on Mad Mountain Mike? A harmless, choreographed fraud. Pat Patterson actually was a nice guy. This wasn’t sport. It was simply a show, with the outcome scripted and rigged--which, of course, describes perfectly the strange, political affair underway down here.

The Republicans announced months ago what they were going to do, and now they are doing it. They are producing a scripted television show under the guise of a political convention. The hard political choices all were made in advance, the potential ideological disputes settled. The speakers have been told what to talk about, their texts have been screened in advance.

They figure this entertainment package will prove to be more useful than a real news event. It certainly reduces the odds their wrassler might be unexpectedly body-slammed on national television. They want Dole to leave town without a single scratch, a veritable Gorgeous George. The risk is obvious. Television thrives on conflict, real or imagined. There is a reason professional wrestling is no longer a prime-time sport.

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Not all of this is exactly new. Dole is hardly the first candidate to sew up the nomination well in advance of the convention. H.L. Mencken was writing 70 years ago about “bossed” conventions in which the floor action had nothing to do with the reality of the nominating process. Playing to the cameras also is old hat: In 1972, much journalistic sport was had with the Republicans in Miami and their “spontaneous demonstrations” of affection for Richard Nixon.

What the Republicans have done this time, however, is to take media manipulation right over the top. This time they are not even pretending it’s anything but a television show or, as many critics have called it, a weeklong “infomercial.” In the era of remote control, that is a dangerous gambit. Or am I the only American who tried to watch George Bush and Monday night baseball at the same time?

As with the wrestlers--”the grunts and groaners,” as they were called in their brief prime-time fling in the early 1950s--the Republicans have assembled a live audience. Gives the set a more sporting feel. In this case, the audience consists of delegates and reporters. The delegates cast no votes. The reporters have little of substance to report. Naturally enough, a growing restlessness can be detected among the 12,000 media representatives. There is much press gallery chat about the paucity of any honest drama, of any news. It’s not pleasant, being cast as a prop, a foil.

I figured that out watching the pro wrestlers. The show always ended with a post-match interview conducted by a hammy reporter. Typically, the wrestler would start out growling about his next opponent. The reporter would begin to needle his subject, questioning his manhood. The wrestler would call the interviewer “a pencil-necked geek,” pick him up, twirl him aloft and body-slam him to the floor. It would end with the reporter tied up in the ring ropes, glasses askew, panting: “That’s it from here, folks. Someone call the police. . . .”

And now I’m told that a television highlight of the first night of the convention was the comedian Al Franken chasing around Pat Robertson with a microphone, trying to ask him about some international Lucifer conspiracy. The pencil-necked geek.

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Happily, there are early signs that the Republican info-convention might well prove to be a flawed test model and junked in the future. The ratings for Monday night indicate a historic 20% decline in the national television audience. Networks have begun to revolt, with some bringing Democrat analysts on board to provide a counterweight to the Republican self-advertisement.

CBS declined to air a canned video tribute to Ronald Reagan--producing loud complaints from Haley Barbour, GOP chairman, who was peeved that the network would have the audacity not to run his show. Tellingly, he called the video the “emotional highlight” of the night. He was right. It was a wonderful video. What it was not was news.

Anyway, it’s not too late. Thursday night is supposed to be the night of high drama: Bob Dole ig going to read a speech. What I would suggest is that they bring an unsuspecting reporter onstage afterward. Let Dole body slam the poor sucker, sneak in a mean dropkick. “Ya pencil-necked geek,” the old man can shout, arms thrown aloft in victory as the crowd roars.

Now that’s television.