DETROIT – The national political conventions are over — and to the surprise of many, the virtual format made necessary by the pandemic was an instant hit — at least for the Democrats.
Television networks, which long ago stopped the “gavel-to-gavel” full carpet coverage of the conventions they offered in TV’s early years, saw a sudden surge of interest in, of all things, the Democrats’ roll call vote on Aug. 18, even though there was no suspense whatsoever about the outcome.
Instead of long, boring speeches in a convention hall, each state had a few seconds to announce their votes, which were done mostly by delegates checking in by Zoom from picturesque or meaningful locations in their home states; in front of the Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma, Alabama, or by Native American delegates in beautiful locations in New Mexico and some western states.
Manufacturing workers took part in Michigan and Ohio; some who announced their state’s totals were politicians running for reelection, like Michigan U.S. Sen. Gary Peters or Indiana’s Pete Buttigieg; most were blissfully unknown to most people.
The roll call from all 57 states, territories and Democrats Abroad took only half an hour; during the last in-person conventions four years ago, both roll calls each took more than an hour and a half.
When it was over, pundits, politicians and the viewing audience seemed to have been totally charmed. “I will miss the parties, but don’t think we should do an in-person convention ever again,” Norm Sterzenbach, a former head of the Iowa Democratic Party, tweeted.
“(This) Roll Call was so much better,” he said. Meanwhile, an NBC reporter added “They should keep this! It’s like the Olympic parade of nations which I so missed this year.”
Before long, there was an event page on Twitter devoted to making this the way the parties meet and vote from now on – even after the pandemic ends.
But is getting rid of these conventions really a good idea?
Maybe not.
For many years, the Democratic and Republican National Conventions were really the places where the presidential candidates were actually chosen, usually by party leaders and often after multiple ballots. Sometimes, total dark horses were nominated.
Nobody had heard of Wendell Willkie before he became the Republican nominee after six ballots in 1940. Adlai Stevenson wasn’t even running for President when he went to the Democratic convention in 1952, but emerged the winner.
That system certainly had its drawbacks, and the question of who the average voter wanted as President was largely ignored – though it did produce candidates like Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt. But sometimes, it broke down.
The worst convention in history was probably the 1924 Democratic one at Madison Square Garden in New York City, when delegates deadlocked between Al Smith, a Roman Catholic candidate who was unacceptable to many, and William G. McAdoo, who had the support of the Ku Klux Klan. Delegates cast ballots for 16 days before they settled on John W. Davis, a candidate nobody had ever heard of.
Not surprisingly, he lost by a landslide. Starting in the 1960s, however, more and more states began choosing their delegates in primary elections, giving party bosses less control. The last convention where there was any doubt about the outcome when delegates assembled was 1976, when President Gerald Ford narrowly won the nomination over Ronald Reagan.
But while the conventions have become less exciting since, they do have an important function. For delegates and party officials, they are sort of like high school reunions and a talent scout competition rolled into one. Meeting your colleagues from across the country in person is a considerably richer experience than a zoom meeting.
Had the Democratic convention in 2004 been online only, it is unlikely that the party would have been blown away, as it was, by a speech made by a previously unknown young star, Barack Obama.
Those watching this year’s convention also were full of praise for the nominating speeches, which were blissfully short. The only names that were allowed to be placed in nomination were former Vice-President Joe Biden and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
When the vote tallies were announced, Biden had 3,558 votes, Sanders 1,151, and 40 delegates abstained or didn’t vote.
But they were not, in fact the only candidates. Though Biden had clearly won the nomination by mid-March, more than 6.1 million primary voters chose U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, billionaire Michael Bloomberg or Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana.
Yet their names were barely mentioned, let alone placed in nomination. In particular, Buttigieg, who is only 38 and is seen as having a bright future, might have benefitted from being able to schmooze with other Democrats from across the country.
It’s easy to make fun of our national conventions, which are, indeed, outmoded in some ways. But in our atomized society, where too many people see text messages as a substitute for conversation and Facebook as one for friendship, we might not want to throw away one of the few institutions left where like-minded people who want to run this country meet in person once every four years.
