GD, GQ, GD, GQ…ah, what the heck. Let’s start off here.
CNote Chris almost hit on the question I wanted to ask, but he didn’t. Also, I’ve done searches and cannot find an answer. Which is: Why do they still hold political conventions?
By the time they roll around we already have our candidates. So I suppose, perhaps, my question should be - Why do they still have primaries?
Why not
throw all the candidates - McCain, Bush, Gore, et al, up at the convention and let them hash it out there?
take all of these candidates, let them blather for 2 years, then put them all on the ballot in November and s/he with the most votes wins?
I am familiar and (just before posting) read the bit in the Constitution about the electoral college. I did not, however, read anything about primaries or conventions. Are they really, truly necessary, or just one more meeting we have to put up with?
Every club likes to get together, trash hotels, cheat on spouses/SO’s, etc. Even fuddy-duddy political parties have’t forgotten how to party.
True story: A radio station I was listening to out of Augusta GA called an escort service based in Augusta, and was asking them if their business picked up when the Masters crod comes to town.
The escort service gal said, “Oh, no. Those people are too wild. We normally shut down while there in town.”
Radio guy: “Well, what group is a good one to serve?”
Escort gal: “The Southern Baptist Convtion. We always look forward to them.”
(OK, the call might have been staged, but I did hear this with my own ears.)
Party Conventions = free publicity and lots of it.
Party Conventions = lets all get together and give each other symbolic hand-jobs over how great we are.
Party Conventions = an event of great importance if no one candidate has a clear advantage going in. (I cannot recall the last time this happened . . . but I am sure it has been well over 20 years ago.)
Party Conventions = a five day snoozefest info-mercial about why you should vote for them
Nothing Man is right. The conventions give the parties a chance to talk directly to the public. The speeches are choreographed to appeal to the voters, and each party usually gets a big boost in the polls after the convention (the public is fickle).
Well, the early primaries are important in focusing the race on a few viable candidates. But usually everything after Super Tuesday is irrelevant; the winner has been decided by then. Still, there’s always the chance that no one candidate will be the obvious winner after ST, so the primary deluge continues.
Well, that’s how they used to do it, from about 1832 up until 1956. Local party officials would go off to the national convention and start making back-room deals to decide who would actually be on the ticket. While there were the occasional primaries (starting in 1912, IIRC), only a few states had them, and the primaries didn’t actually lock down many delegates from those states.
1960 was the real revolution year as far as conventions were concerned. Primaries were just considered a test-run, and still didn’t determine many delegates; but Kennedy’s performance in the primaries turned him from a long-shot candidate into a front-runner in the eyes of the party, and his winning of the nomination can be easily traced back to his major victories in the 1960 primaries (especially West Virginia).
Since then, the parties have tied more and more delegate votes directly to primary results; mostly this was a ‘reform’ to take candidate selection out of the hands of a few powerful insiders and place it directly in the hands of the people. The parties continue to rewrite and revamp the direct correlations- that is, which states have how many votes, and how those votes are assigned; and it’s probably worth noting that many times the next election’s selection is someone who was on the committee that decided the rules (McGovern was on the '68 committee; Carter on the '72 committee; Mondale on the '80 committee).
It used to be that conventions were major battles- battles over what planks would be in the platforms, battles over who the Presidential candidate would be, battles over who would become Vice-President (most in the sense of “YOU should be veep!” “Oh, no, I think YOU should be veep!” The 1876 Republican Convention almost ended in a stampede because someone spread the rumor that the last delegate to leave would be the vice-presidential candidate).
Nowadays, it’s all pretty much pre-ordained; the Presidential candidate is chosen by the primaries, he/she selects his/her own veep, and any battles over the plank are fought in private beforehand so as to have a smooth, harmonious convention. The conventions are really nothing more than publicity now (as so many others have stated); and the thought of an actual convention battle seems like such bad publicity that people bend over backwards to avoid it (remember the image of the Democrats after Chicago in '68? Remember the imagine of Republicans after Buchanan’s speech in '92?).
The parties would never stand for that. Think about it- assume there are as many Democratic voters as Republican voters. But only 3 Republicans run this years as compared to 5 Democrats. The Republicans divide their votes and their party organization (you know- all those campaign workers and volunteers who help pass out leaflets, arrange the candidate’s stay in a particular city, co-ordinate information with the press, etc.) much less, and so have a natural advantage going into the election. Ergo, even if we had a ‘all-comers’ election, the Democrats and Republicans would consider it to their advantage to only field a single candidate each.
The US does not have political parties of the kind which exist in other countries, except for certain minor parties like the Greens or the Communist Party. The Democrat and Republican “Parties” are not parties.
Political parties universally are membership organizations. Like minded people form organizations of which they are members. They draft a constitution, pay dues, attend meetings, debate and vote on the party program, elect officers, and choose candidates for public office in the manner dictated by their constitutions and by-laws. They are private organizations and do not allow the state to control their internal affairs. Usually, only a small percentage of the population of a country belongs to a party. I recall seeing the figures for the Tory party of the UK and remember that is was very small-a few hundred thousand people when it was the ruling party. People will support this or that party, but a distinction exists between party members and party suppoSo how is this different than in the US? First of all,
hardly any people in this country (the US) have any idea what a real political party looks like. They’ve never seen one. In this country, people register to vote as a Democrat or Republican or whatever. Now they are considered party members! But they are not. There are not primary party bodies of which they are members and can do all the things mentioned above. So if you don’t become a party member by registering, how do you? The answer is, “You can’t”! So then, who are the party members? Answer: There aren’t any!!
In fact, the State,the Democrats, and the Republicans have become an integrated whole. The laws of the state recognize the role of these “parties” and thoroughly participate in their internal affairs. The state runs primaries to choose candidates, allocates money for their campaigns and their “conventions”. These “conventions” which real parties in other places call Congresses, have nothing tparties hammer out a “program” at their congresses, which, for whatever reason, in this country is called a “platform”.
Naturally, in other parties, the Chairman is the leader who has survived multiple votes on many levels-local, regional, and national-to be elected the party leader. Also, naturally enough, the party leader is usually chaosen to run for the highest office for which the party puts forth candidates. What about the US? The party “chairman” is usually some non-entity chosen by the President. A mere figurehead. I forget how the “party” out of power chooses it’s “Chair”
The affect of all this is a completely de-politicised population. THE most politically unsophisticated people in the world! Seriously. Just go to any other country and start talking politics with the locals and you will soon be in a very deep conversation which can last long into the night. Here, you won’t get far beyond abortion or the environment. Important subjects, but they are determined by more basic political considerations.
Well, there is much more, like how the Dems and the Reps good cop/bad cop the people, but this is enough for now.
Who here thinks that the US needs a third major party? I vote Republican, but both Dems and Reps have become too ingrained into the political spectrum. We need a populist party to step in and really shake things up.
“Party Conventions = an event of great importance if no one candidate has a clear advantage going in. (I cannot recall the last time this happened . . . but I am sure it has been well over 20 years ago.)”
IIRC, the last convention at which the Presidential nomination was in serious doubt as the convention started was the 1952 GOP convention. (Taft vs. Eisenhower). Am I right?
Comment: As a viewer, I always hope for a contested convention, as they make for better TV. Until recent years, up here in Canada, the various party leadership races were usually decided at the convention by the delegates–multiple rounds of voting with the bottom candidate dropped, until someone won a majority or the last two slugged it out on the final ballot. Cutthroat intrigue makes for great TV.
I think though, that US political operatives prefer to have everything decided beforehand so that they can stage manage everything at the convention. Something like what happened at the 1924 Democratic convention (which took several days and 103 ballots to pick a presidential nominee) would look nightmarish to the average viewer today.
Lots of fodder for Leno, Letterman, etc.
It’s so that the upstart networks (Fox, UPN, WB) have a chance at grabbing a bigger viewing audience, since less people will be watching the major networks’ coverage of the conventions. :D:D
In 1976, neither Gerald Ford nor Ronald Reagan had taken enough delegates from the primaries to have a lock on the nomination. However, just before the convention, Reagan announced that he would pick a Pennsylvania Congressman (Schwietzer, IIRC) as his running-mate- someone who was known as a very liberal Republican. Reagan hoped that it would convince moderate and liberal Republicans that he wasn’t as ‘extremist’ as he had been portrayed, but in fact, it didn’t sway many liberals or moderates but did offend many of his conservative supporters, and Ford ended up winning the nomination on the first ballot.
In 1968, the Democratic convention was completely up in the air due to the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, who up to that point had been the front-runner in the primaries and held the most delegates. With Kennedy’s death, most delegates were forced to choose between Eugene MacCarthy (who had been a good liberal and an early fighter against the Vietnam War, but was considered an arrogant SOB by most delegates) and Hubert Humphrey (who had also been a great liberal Senator, but had been VP and lap-dog to Johnson for the last four years, and would have to support the Vietnam War). Finally, amidst incredible chaos, Humphrey managed to win over enough delegates to be elected.
In 1960, the Democratic convention was still run by the ‘old-style’ rules, and so Kennedy’s support from winning primaries wasn’t considered a lock on the nomination. While considered a front-runner, most people expected Lyndon Johnson- famous for his negotating and back-room dealing skills- to be able to strong-arm enough delegates into a first-round win. Kennedy’s win on the first ballot was a shock to a great many people.
There are two other instances where the nominee was considered the ‘front-runner’ but not necessarily the lock-in candidate- Nixon in '68 and Goldwater in '64; in both cases, they had a strong lead going into the convention, but nothing was certain until the voting ended.
That having been said, the nominees of every convention from 1980 onwards have been completely locked in well before the convention began.
