Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Conventional wisdom: Surprises needed

By Carl Heintze

Here we are in the middle of that wonderful American custom known as the political convention. Once upon a time, conventions were a high point in the American political process. They were not only vastly entertaining, but also important. They were the time and place where candidates for the highest office in the land were selected.

In spite of all the hoopla and hamming it up, they represented a way for the country to evaluate who was going to lead the nation for the next four years.

There wasn't anything quite like them in democratic countries elsewhere. They evolved as a peculiarly American institution.

That was a couple of decades ago. In the past two or three national presidential elections, things have gone steadily downhill.

Everything about nominating Bob Dole in San Diego was taken care of before the convention started, including the selection of the vice presidential candidate. Vice presidential candidates today don't represent the will of the people. They are chosen by the presidential candidate for their effect on getting the presidential candidate
elected.

With the Democrats back in Chicago (in spite of memories of 1968), there will be no surprises, either.

Both conventions thus will move the once-noble political tradition another step toward becoming a choreographed circus with the usual hoopla, the "spontaneous" demonstrations, little or no debate over the platforms almost no one ever reads anyway, an occasional polling of a delegation--giving every delegate polled a chance to sound off about his native state, locality or whatever--with about the only thing unplanned being the possibility of a floor fight or two over seating or not seating a delegation.

But, all in all, both conventions are largely meaningless.

All the action in nominating a candidate has switched to primary elections, starting in New Hampshire, and proceeding until everything is sewed up, usually before summer starts. Even the gathering of the Reform Party, Ross Perot's own personal political vehicle, seems unlikely to generate much heat. After all, Perot followers can't desert the man who dreamed them up and paid for a good part of their existence.

Former Gov. Richard Lamm, you should pardon the expression, was led like a lamb to slaughter.

Old-timers sigh for the conventions of yore, the days when candidates were working the delegates before, during and after, when the course of the gathering was often not predicable and when all kinds of excitement evolved as the meeting went on.

Who, for example, could forget Dwight David Eisenhower's first nomination when the galleries chanted "We Like Ike!" eventually shouting down Robert Taft, who thought he had the presidency all sewed up.

Or the Democratic convention of 1968, that terrible time in Chicago, when police and anti-Vietnam demonstrators clashed all over town even as Hubert Humphrey, oblivious to it all, kissed the TV set as his nomination went over the top. He never really did understand what had happened, any more than did most of the convention.

This year it seems unlikely there will be any sweaty caucuses on the floor as delegates strain to hear and try to decide whether the Mississippi delegation should be seated. This was in the days of "states' rights" before segregation had been ended legally and when the black delegation from Mississippi asked to be seated and the white delegation tried to thwart them.

These days, demonstrations at conventions are always well planned, precisely timed and not very meaningful.

In short, from the point of view of we spectators, a lot of the fun of the conventions is gone. American politics has become so organized there is little, if any, room for the unexpected.

How would either convention handle, for instance, William Jennings Bryan's great speech, which thunders at its end: "You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns! You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold!"

You just don't get convention oratory like that any more. It died with Everett Dirksen.

Convention oratory, excepting perhaps for Pat Buchanan, who was carefully steered away from a repeat of his prime-time spot during the last convention, has turned flabby and inconsequential. Oratory, like the conventions themselves, has turned safe.

Too bad. What American politics needs and doesn't have is some of the spirit of the days when conventions were a major event in the political year, a time when we felt we, too, were taking part in the democratic process. Today it often seems we're not even spectators.

Carl Heintze is a frequent contributor to the Los Gatos Weekly-Times