A Compact & Entirely Practical Citizen Guide to the Political Conventions by John S. Jackson The national convention season is upon us. Republicans will go first. By tradition the party out of the White House always goes first. They'll meet in San Diego August 12-15. Then it will he the Democrats turn. They'll meet in Chicago August 26-29. This quadrennial exercise in American electoral democracy may be a puzzle to most people who see the conventions as an anachronism at best. Yet, while conventions no longer control presidential nominations, they do influence the fall election. We can study them for clues about the direction of the parties and the nation. So sit back and watch the action. National political conventions have been an American tradition since the early part of the last century. The Democrats have met without fail, through war and peace, prosperity and depression, every four years since the first presidential nominating convention was held in Baltimore in 1832. This is a remarkable unbroken political lineage that links Bill Clinton's renomination back across 164 years and 41 conventions to Andrew Jackson's renomination. Meanwhile, as the younger of the two major parties, the Republicans have been holding national conventions since 1856, when they met in Philadelphia to nominate John C. Fremont. Their 140-year history as a national party easily places the Republicans among the oldest major political parties in the world. So powerful is the place of the national conventions in our political culture that Ross Perot's Reform Party reportedly will join the two major parties with a nominating meeting of its own. The group plans a two-phased national convention in two cities in late August. Of course, national political conventions do have their shortcomings and their critics. In fact, some believe they're more trouble than they're worth. And, admittedly, they are a throwback to an earlier era, to the 19th-century style of politics featuring torchlight parades and Fourth of July picnics, fervid oratory and face-to-face politicking. They can seem out-of-date in this era of jumbo-jet presidential campaigns, where the point is not to face a crowd in a big arena but to get the candidate's image and message on the nightly news. In this high-speed, sound bite-saturated age, the national conventions — taking up 16 to 18 hours a day for almost a week — can seem tedious. Further, the political importance of the national con- 28 ¦ August 1996 Illinois Issues ventions has declined. Between 1912 and 1968, delegates to the conventions played the key role in choosing the nominees. More precisely, party leaders made the deals: The big city mayors in the case of the Democrats and the big state governors in the case of the Republicans got together and made the choice. Since 1968, there's been a rise in the importance of state primaries. Today we already know the nominee by the time the delegates get together. Despite their diminished role, however, there is still an important place for the national political conventions in the presidential drama. Chicago is as good a place as any to begin an analysis of the role of modern political conventions. That city has played host to more of them than any other city in the United States. Counting 1996, Chicago has been the site of 11 Democratic conventions and 14 Republican conventions. Some of them have been fairly colorful. Chicago hosted the second Republican National Convention, for instance, in 1860 — the city's first. It featured five viable candidates and plenty of political intrigue and infighting. That year the two national parties and the national political system were being reformed in the crucible of the slavery debate. After some horse trading, party leaders compromised on Abraham Lincoln of Illinois on the third ballot. In fact, that convention was the epitome of what we now call a "brokered convention," where the party elites bargain until a decision is reached and a consensus candidate identified. That was an era when conventions made the crucial decisions on the nominees. Of course, brokered conventions didn't always produce candidates of the quality of Lincoln. Others produced such lackluster presidents as Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge. The 1952 political convention, again held in Chicago, also exemplifies the power delegates once had to select a nominee. That year the Democrats chose another Illinois candidate for president: Adlai Stevenson. There were two major contenders: Stevenson and Sen. Estes Kefauver of Tennessee. Kefauver was the candidate who had gone through what we would now expect, even require, of a viable candidate. He had fought through the entire presidential primary season, beginning with a victory in New Hampshire over incumbent President Harry Truman, who had not clearly announced his intention to seek a second elected term. In fact, Truman didn't announce his withdrawal from the race until the end of March. On today's primary calendar, the nomination process would be virtually complete by that date.
Truman ultimately endorsed Stevenson and urged the party to nominate him. Stevenson was also supported at the convention by a number of the major party leaders and such big city mayors as David Lawrence of Pittsburgh and William O'Dwyer of New York. In Illinois, it was crucial that former Cook County Democratic leader Jacob Arvey — who was not mayor at that time but the most powerful Illinois Democrat — supported Stevenson. Stevenson was nominated on the third ballot, though he had not entered a single primary. Skipping the primaries would be unthinkable today. The rule is to run everywhere and, if possible, to win early and win often. The new nominating rules were instituted in 1972 in the wake of Chicago's 1968 Democratic convention. After they returned home, Democratic Party leaders resolved to begin internal changes enabling voters to have a greater role in the selection of presidential candidates. As a result, the McGovern-Fraser Commission substantially increased the role of the state primaries. That role has grown since. Thus, the last Chicago convention resulted in a watershed change in the way we nominate presidents. The 1968 Democratic convention Illinois Issues August 1996 ¦ 29 also provides a useful lesson on the role of contemporary conventions: They are important in setting the stage for the general election campaigns. If the convention is peaceful and harmonious and the candidate is nominated with little real opposition, the convention augers well for the fall. On the other hand, if there are deep divisions in the party signaled by fights over nominee, platform or rules, the party will have real difficulty healing those wounds in time to present a unified front to the voters. In short, the party that holds the most successful convention usually goes on to win the presidency. Part of the reason for this correlation is found in the delegates — who they are, and what they represent. They're the party activists, and they are, by and large, representatives of the grass roots of their respective parties at the state and local level. If those constituent party organizations are reasonably united, enthusiastic about their candidate and eager for the fall campaign, that unity will be reflected in the convention's deliberations. If there are deep divisions at the grass roots, they will likewise be evident in the convention hall. The Democrats' 1968 division over Vietnam and the Republicans' ongoing divisions over abortion policy are ready examples. Further, a convention functions as a giant pep rally for the political activists. The speeches, the excitement, the mingling with other activists from all over the nation are a heady mixture for the convention-goers. They get the partisan juices flowing, the adrenaline rushing for the fall combat season. It's easy enough to discount all of this as the silly games politicians and partisans play; however, the public has a stake in the conventions as well. That stake is most obvious in the party platforms. While there is a quality of unreal partisan rhetoric about the platforms, they should not be ignored. Research by political scientist Gerald Pomper, in his book Elections in America, has demonstrated convincingly that the platforms are important because they set the public policy agenda for the future — especially for the party that wins the White House. For two decades convention platforms have offered real and important policy alternatives that deserve debate. If the American public wants a clear picture of the nominees, the policies they will pursue, the kind of Supreme Court justices they will appoint and their vision for America, the platforms and the rhetoric from the podium are crucial. They are civics lessons that, like any good lesson, will repay serious study. While the conventions no longer control the presidential nominations, they are necessary to make the nomination official. They also make the vice presidential nomination official. They adopt the platform and the rules under which the national parties will operate for the next four years. And they carry out much business that is important to the political parties. This summer the conventions should be the occasion for an effective national forum enabling us to learn more about the candidates, their policies and their proposed solutions for the nation's problems. We should examine the national conventions for clues about ourselves, our institutions and the parties' proposed alternatives for our future. Who needs the national conventions? We all do. John S. Jackson is a political scientist and dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. A specialist in presidential selection, he co-wrote The Making of a Primary: The Illinois Presidential Primary — 1912-1992 with David H. Everson and Nancy L. Clay ton, published by the University of Illinois at Springfield, and The Politics of Presidential Selection with William Crotty, published by Harper Collins.
EDITOR'S CHOICE
"AIN'T YOU GLAD YOU JOINED THE REPUBLICANS?" by John Calvin Batchelor (Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1996). Republicans wear white hats, too. For starters they can claim Abraham Lincoln, the party's first, and perhaps America's greatest president. Batchelor traces the GOP's history from its roots in the antislavery movement to Rough Rider Teddy Roosevelt, who led America into the 20th century and onto the world stage, to The Great Communicator, Ronald Reagan. In fact, it was a journalist who first gave the party a voice. In 1854, Horace Greeley, founder of the New York Tribune, named it in an editorial against slavery. Six years later, in Chicago, the new party would nominate Lincoln. "Without Greeley's scolding, cajoling, long-striding editorials, there would not have been a Wigwam packed with ten thousand righteous crusaders." Batchelor adds a postscript on Newt Gingrich and the Contract with America: The traditional GOP platform presented in the form of a business plan. He ends with this from Reagan: "You ain't seen nothing yet." Illinois Issues August 1996 ¦ 31
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