From today’s Mobile Press-Register

It won’t be long before Democratic and Republican delegates from the 50 states and various territories gather to hold their national conventions, and Alabamians will play a role in both.

Alabama will send some 60 citizens to the Democratic National Convention and 48 to the GOP’s.

Once upon a time, the national conventions played a vital role in our party system. Indeed, they were the actual mechanisms used by party insiders to negotiate presidential nominees and their running mates.

The last time that this was true, however, was 1968. Changes to the rules have shifted the power of selection to the primaries and caucuses.

Rather than thinking of the conventions as playing a central role in the electoral process, it is better to understand them as “info-mercials,” wherein the parties attempt to sell their candidate to the public. More to the point, they are probably best understood as pep rallies for the faithful.

It is true that, technically, the formal function of nomination still rests with the national party conventions. Until the delegates vote, neither party has an official nominee.

However, the vote is predetermined by the results of the long process of caucuses and primaries that started in Iowa in a cold day in January and continued until June (although meaningfully, only for the Democrats, as the Republican nominee was essentially settled in February).

As such, the conventions are really nothing more than massive rubber stamps. In this case, the primary/caucus process has filtered the two major parties down to one candidate each: Sen.Barack Obama of Illinois for the Democrats and Sen. John McCain of Arizona for the Republicans. It is all over but the shouting at this point (and yes, there will be some shouting — not to mention signs, streamers and funny hats).

The rubber stamps are poised to drop in Denver for the Democrats and in Minneapolis for the Republicans.

Sure, there have been blips of drama over the years, such as Ted Kennedy’s unsuccessful attempt at dislodging Jimmy Carter from the nomination in 1980, but really, the conventions have been studies in anticlimax since the reforms.

And yes, there will be some fantastical speculation between now and then by bored pundits who will conjure scenarios in which the conventions might produce results that differ from those foreordained for them, but these are as likely as Ole Miss winning the SEC in football this season. It could happen in theory, but we all know that it isn’t going to.

It would take death or major scandal for either Obama or McCain to be denied his party’s nod, even though there are still some Hillary Clinton supporters who dream of a floor fight via a roll-call vote of the delegates.

The fact that only media outlets like C-SPAN will broadcast the events in their entirety should tell you all you need to know about the bottom-line significance of these processes and how far they have fallen from the days of wall-to-wall coverage by the networks — when there was only a handful of channels, no less.

They have gone from being all there was on TV to being niche programming, and with good reason. Only the party faithful and political junkies are likely to have much interest in these productions.

Certainly, it’s possible that there will be a noteworthy speech or two given, although in honesty, truly memorable (let alone consequential) speeches are few and far between.

However, Barack Obama himself was introduced to the American public in his 2004 convention speech. Pat Buchanan’s culture war speech in 1992 is still discussed, and the late Ann Richards scored a sound bite for the ages when she stated that then-Vice President George H.W. Bush was “born with a silver foot in his mouth.”

Of course, Buchanan’s relevance in the GOP was already eroding by the time he made that speech, and Bush went on to win the presidency in 1988, so memorable-ness isn’t the same as long-term importance.

It is also true that part of the convention process is for committees to draw up the party platforms, which contain the basic statements of the beliefs and policy goals of the parties. However, these documents do not bind the candidates in any way, so they’re really exercises in futility.

The only other function that the conventions have played in recent years is to signal the start of the general election campaign season (as opposed to the primary season). Specifically, that meant the shift to full public financing of the campaign.

However, even that role is diminished this year by Obama’s decision to opt out of the process and raise his own money for that portion of the campaign.

Truth is, it’s time to reform (if not do away with) the entire convention process, seeing as how it is currently nothing more than a lengthy, expensive anachronism. There’s no reason to spend all the time and money (some of which is provided by tax dollars, by the way) needed to have these conventions just so that a pre-determined choice can be made.

Of course, such reform should be linked up to a revamping of the entire nomination process, but that is for another column on another day.

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5 Responses to “PoliColumn: The Party Conventions”

1. Column on the Conventions Says:
   July 27th, 2008 at 3:16 pm

   [...] I just remembered, I have a column out in today’s Press-Register (the Mobile, AL paper) on the party convention process: PoliColumn: The Party Conventions. [...]

2. Buckland Says:
   July 27th, 2008 at 9:36 pm

   However, Barack Obama himself was introduced to the American public in his 2004 convention speech. Pat Buchanan’s culture war speech in 1992 is still discussed, and the late Ann Richards scored a sound bite for the ages when she stated that then-Vice President George H.W. Bush was “born with a silver foot in his mouth.”

   Of course, Buchanan’s relevance in the GOP was already eroding by the time he made that speech, and Bush went on to win the presidency in 1988, so memorable-ness isn’t the same as long-term importance.

   I guess I don’t follow the flow of logic in this part. You say Pat B. gave the speech in 1992, but in the next paragraph say his relevance was eroding and GHWB went on to win in 1988 so “memorable-ness isn’t the same as long-term importance.” If he gave the speech 4 years after GHWB won the presidency how does that demonstrate it’s lack of long term importance?

   I feel like I’m missing something.

3. Dr. Steven Taylor Says:
   July 27th, 2008 at 9:54 pm

   That is poor execution on my part–the 1988 reference to GHWB winning was to the Ann Richard’s quip (she made in ‘88).

   The parallelism is there in the two sentences, but the chronological order is a bit confusing, I guess. Indeed, in looking at the paragraph, I didn’t do a very good job there.

   Ah well.

4. Chris Lawrence Says:
   July 27th, 2008 at 11:01 pm

   “…[T]hese are as likely as Ole Miss winning the SEC in football this season. It could happen in theory, but we all know that it isn’t going to.”

   Them’s fightin’ words!

5. Dr. Steven Taylor Says:
   July 27th, 2008 at 11:23 pm