Enjoying the Show Gavel to Gavel

Los Angeles looks to be a lock for the 2000 Democratic presidential nominating convention--or, as I call it, pin the head on the donkey.

Imagine the thrills we have in store, especially if our convention concludes with a typically stirring, spirit-lifting, knee-slapping, shake-down-the-thunder speech by presumptive nominee Al Gore, Mr. Excitement himself.

Gore could be a good man, but as a speechmaker, let’s face it, Jesse Jackson he ain’t.

The 1960 Democratic Convention began in L.A. with what Republican foe-to-be Richard Nixon would later describe as “Sen. Frank Church’s inept keynote address.”

It ended with John F. Kennedy being sent forth to see what he could do for his country.

Nixon claimed to have ignored the convention’s TV coverage coming out of California, spending most of his time instead at Camp David, drafting an acceptance speech for a nomination he hadn’t yet won.

A special session of Congress was recessed in 1960, not to be reconvened until after that Democratic convention. This irked Nixon, who, as vice president, needed to remain available to break ties on votes, while Kennedy and his running mate, Lyndon Johnson, were already out running.

Although they were senators, JFK and LBJ were able to vote by proxy. They were thereby free to get a jump on Dick Nixon, who would ultimately lose the election by a close shave.

*

I have always been a one-man captive audience for our national political conventions, watching them “gavel to gavel,” to use one of TV’s pet expressions, from the time I was old enough to tell which one was Huntley and which was Brinkley.

They were dramas devoid of suspense, maddeningly lacking the confrontation and intrigue I had come to enjoy in so many literary or theatrical endeavors on the subject, be they Drury’s “Advise and Consent” or Vidal’s “The Best Man,” in which somebody--usually Henry Fonda--got caught in the crossfire of backroom combat.

I waited, year after year, for a convention--Dem or GOP, didn’t matter to me--to go beyond a first ballot, to a third, a fifth, with favors changing hands, delegations changing sides and network commentators babbling from the convention floor, wearing headset apparatus of the period that was slightly larger than a TV’s rabbit ears and slightly smaller than Sputnik’s.

If only one convention had gone into overtime, with more than one candidate squabbling over which one should be the party’s choice, I would have sat there in front of my Philco until an Indian’s face appeared on a test pattern.

I wanted anger, shouting, chaos.

I wanted Nelson Rockefeller not to introduce Nixon as the party’s candidate, wanted Barry Goldwater not to endorse Nixon, but wanted Rocky and Barry to stand there and make the 1960 Chicago convention a knockdown, drag-out fight with name-calling and finger-pointing (and, in Rockefeller’s case, finger-raising) until the convention could have the fun and fury of Sonny Liston vs. Cassius Clay.

But no, the conventions always ended amicably, party members dutifully getting behind their man--always a man, at least until I covered the 1984 Democratic Convention in San Francisco and up stepped Geraldine Ferraro, to become an object of hero worship to women in America and an object of derision to fools who seized the day.

For as soon as Ferraro’s name surfaced, novelty manufacturers had their wares on the streets of San Francisco, mocking the VP choice of Walter Mondale, with badges and T-shirts that bore tasteless little rhythmic slogans, like “Fritz & T---.”

If you think J. Danforth Quayle suffered ridicule, you should have seen what Ferraro had to endure that week.

*

My favorite moment from a convention also centered on the selection of a running mate. It occurred at the 1980 Republican get-together in Detroit, where speculation ran rampant as to whose name would be on the ticket with Ronald Reagan’s.

Everybody remembers the Chicago Tribune’s reckless DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN edition, but few recall the Chicago Sun-Times’ three-star final of July 17, 1980, and its banner headline: “It’s Reagan and Ford.”

“Gerald R. Ford has accepted the vice presidential spot on the GOP ticket . . . sources said,” the story began.

I own that paper, plus the five-star final edition, headlined: “It’s Reagan and Bush.”

Makes me worry what our 2000 convention’s souvenirs will be.

Mike Downey’s column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Write to him at Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles CA 90053. E-mail: mike.downey@latimes.com