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| Don't look for either party to have a brokered convention next year. |
| 2007-09-17 |
| by Michael Barone, Wall Street Journal . . . There is a yearning in some quarters to see an old-time convention again, with platform or credentials fights, multiple ballots, favorite-son candidates and old political pros holding back delegates on the first or second ballot so that their candidate can be seen as gaining strength on the third or fourth. . . . Is it possible that the Democrats or the Republicans could have that kind of convention next year? . . . The old-time convention was a medium through which men who seldom saw each other and often didn't know each other could communicate, negotiate and reach an agreement. And not always productively. . . . The function of the convention as a communications medium became clear to me in reading the memoir of Franklin Roosevelt's 1932 and 1936 campaign manager, Postmaster General James Farley. At one point Farley tells how he was able to predict, accurately, that Roosevelt would carry every state but Maine and Vermont in 1936. Farley transmitted the prediction to FDR in a book sent by special messenger containing copies of letters from Democratic leaders in every state, letters he assured Roosevelt were "not a week old." He added that he was "telephoning every state leader north of the Mason and Dixon line this afternoon for last minute reports, and if I get anything worthwhile I will pass it on to you this evening." In other words, in 1936 it was considered extraordinary for even the campaign manager of the incumbent president of the U.S. to make long-distance calls to political leaders. Men of business in the 1930s, and up through the 1950s when direct-distance dialing was instituted, communicated largely through letters. Long-distance calls remained rare in the early 1960s, when they cost about $1 a minute at a time when factory workers earned $100 a week. Politicians in the years of old-time conventions did not reveal their bottom-line negotiating positions or their goals in writing. They remembered that the 1884 Republican nominee James G. Blaine was assailed with the concluding words of a letter that had gotten into the wrong hands: "Burn this letter!" In 1932 Farley could not begin his serious politicking for the Democratic nomination until he got off the train at Chicago's Union Station and could speak with other politicians in person. Campaign managers did not really know how many delegate votes their candidates had until the first roll call. Preliminary roll calls on platform resolutions or credential fights provided useful and hitherto unavailable information about candidate strength. . . . Today the convention as a communications medium has been replaced by other media, such as long-distance telephones, frequent air travel, an abundance of public opinion polls and by the television networks' delegate counts (Martin Plissner conducted the first one for CBS in 1968; in 1976 the networks' counts held up in the very close contest between Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan). Not to mention the Political Hotline (founded by Doug Bailey in the 1980s), the Internet, the blogosphere and Blackberries. The kind of communication that was possible only at the convention in the old days is now going on all around us. The parties will continue to hold national conventions, because the experience of the last 25 years tells them that they can be (though aren't always) effective advertisements for their nominees, who have of course been chosen months before. The vice presidential nominees also have been chosen before the convention in most cases. But even if the caucuses and primaries of one or both parties in 2008 fail to give any candidate a majority of delegates, no one is going to wait for the convention to negotiate an outcome. He's probably right, damnit! An old-fashioned floor fight would be fun to see, but it ain't gonna happen. |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #1 There are still possibilities. For example, with some subtle maneuvering ahead of time, Hillary might be weak enough so that she might not win the first ballot against Obama. While she was then figuring out how to nail the second ballot, the delegates would have been freed up. At that point, Al Gore could enter and try to take the second ballot in a proclamation vote, if his people had calculated taking enough delegates away from both Hillary and Obama to win outright. Even if he couldn't take the second ballot, he could then play king maker for "anybody but Hillary". If Hillary still won, he could then split the party, and go independent or Green. He has the money to get away with it. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2007-09-17 14:03 |