The Ghosts of Nominating Conventions Past, Present and Future

Ghosts rattling their chains have been disturbing my sleep of late. There are three of them. They first appeared during the long run-up to the Republican convention in Philadelphia and have been increasing their din as we approach the Democratic convention right here in L.A. If I were younger, they would probably be trying to get my attention by masquerading as something out of “The X-Files,” but due to my age and my profession as an English professor, they’ve chosen to appear as emanations from the imagination of Charles Dickens. Yes, they are the Ghosts of Nominating Conventions Past, Present and Future.

The Ghost of Nominating Conventions Past, who appears in the guise of an old-fashioned newsboy shouting “Extra! Extra! Read All About It,” lifts the curtain on a scene in which the outcomes of the two parties’ political conventions were quite unpredictable. Ballot after ballot might be cast before the nominee was chosen, as happened when the Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln in 1860. The vice presidential candidate could be anyone’s guess until the convention was over, as happened a century later when Lyndon B. Johnson agreed to be John F. Kennedy’s running mate. Even the party platform was hammered out on the convention floor.

In short, the nominating conventions were once genuine events in which genuine decision-making took place. And people paid attention to them. I still recall my grandfather, then nearly 80, tuning in to the 1964 nominating conventions, telling me that watching that year was important for him and my grandmother because they would probably be the last conventions they’d be alive to see. It would be their last performance of what they regarded as a civic duty.

*

Enter the Ghost of Political Conventions Present, wearing sideburns and holding a television camera. The scene he reveals opens in 1972, the year in which America’s nominating conventions caught up with the television age and took control of it. Keenly recalling the damage done to the Democrats in 1968, when uncontrolled TV coverage focused on rioters, not delegates, the Republicans that year produced the first fully scripted convention. Like a well-structured marketing campaign, nothing in 1972 was left to chance; every second was organized, including minute-by-minute cues for “spontaneous” demonstrations and applause. And the Grand Old Party was rewarded with a landslide victory.

Taking the hint, the Democrats followed suit. And the result is the modern nominating convention: a pseudo-event crafted for the television camera in which nothing of real moment can happen. The delegates simply rubber-stamp what the primaries have already decided, while the nominee’s choices of running mate and party platform are decided offstage. There’s nothing left for the convention to decide. What had once been high drama is now nothing more than an extended advertisement.

The modern, made-for-TV convention has produced a certain paradox, however. Because with all of the true drama being drained out of the event, there is no compelling reason to watch it. A dramatic performance can be effective only if the audience doesn’t already know its outcome, and everyone knows how the conventions will turn out. Thus, while the whole purpose of conventions today is to get people to watch them so they will buy the product (that is, vote for the nominee) in November, viewers are tuning out in droves, zapping the conventions as they zap TV commercials with their remotes.

How will the convention managers of the future respond to this dilemma? Will they give up their scripts and allow their quadrennial pageants to become genuine events in which real decision-making takes place and viewers will see authentic party politics at work? It’s not likely, because in our consumer culture nothing anymore is left to chance. Everything is scripted, organized and controlled to maximize market share and product sales. With elections becoming more and more expensive as the cost of political advertising goes up, every indication is that presidential politics will only become more the domain of marketers, not less so.

*

And so enters the Ghost of Nominating Conventions Future, wearing a goatee and packing a Palm Pilot, with a vision of what is to come.

You guessed it, the conventions of the present will go the way of the Sherman Oaks Galleria to make room for the online convention. If today’s political convention is an expression of modern retailing, the postmodern convention will be strictly an e-tailing operation. Convention Web sites, links, chat lines, interactive polling and whatnot will invite consumers (um, I mean voters) to visit virtual convention sites featuring virtual candidates. Which will be appropriate, the ghost tells me, because elections will be virtual as well, with voting itself going online. In short, if present trends continue, we can look forward to a presidential election truly worthy of Max Headroom, and which will be as real as my three ghosts, rattling their chains in the darkness.