Chapter Eight: The Conventions
The national party conventions mark the official turning point in the presidential campaign from the primary season to the general election in the fall. Although it is generally widely known for months before who the presidential nominee will be, the convention allows the party to put aside any intra-party jockeying and squabbles that occurred during the primaries, unite behind its nominee, define itself for the voters, and set the tone for the fall offensive.
What’s It All About? The Function of the National Conventions
Marketing isn’t the only function of the conventions. In a formal sense, the conventions are the highest, most important source of authority for a national party. That is, the conventions are officially the top decision-making body of the parties.
But this way of looking at the conventions is somewhat old-fashioned. In reality, most of the important decisions about the direction of the party and the identity of the party’s nominees for president and vice president have already been made by the time the convention starts—by the nominee, the nominee’s top political strategists, and the national committee of the party.
Nonetheless, the party conventions do play some important formal roles. In addition to nominating the president and vice president, conventions officially establish party rules and priorities for the four years between presidential elections. The conventions are the only time the parties gather at the national level, and so there’s business to be done both on and off the convention floor. The major items on the convention agenda:
• Nominate candidates for president and vice president. This is the convention function that gets the most attention, even though the party nominees are usually known well in advance. (The last contested party convention was the 1976 Republican convention, in which Ronald Reagan unsuccessfully challenged Gerald Ford for the nomination.) Most often, the role of the national party convention today is merely to ratify the choice that the voters made during primary and caucus season by nominating the top vote getter among the party’s presidential contenders. In choosing the vice presidential nominee, delegates invariably go along with their presidential nominee’s choice of a running mate, whose identity is invariably known in advance.
• Adopt a national party platform. The platform is a declaration of the party’s principles and its positions on important issues confronting the nation. Although it is not binding on candidates, the platform establishes a tone and a direction for the party’s efforts at all levels of government. “Platform fights” can still erupt over the party’s positions on hot-button issues such as trade or abortion, but the parties generally try to smooth out the differences and encourage compromise in the interest of demonstrating party unity.
• Adopt the rules that govern the party for the next four years. (This is especially true for the Republicans; the Democratic Party’s national committee, which meets regularly, can also change party rules.) The conventions offer a chance to discuss and approve the rules governing how the parties function. Conventions can consider changes in party rules and procedures on issues from the selection of national convention delegates to the composition of the party’s national committee. Convention delegates also elect national committee members and convention officers.
• Rally the party faithful. The convention is also an opportunity to recognize all the people who have worked hard for the party and given their time and money to help it succeed. And it is a time to try to make sure that the party’s supporters are still behind it and will continue to work for the party and its candidates during the upcoming election and beyond.
The Delegates: Who Are All These People?
Convention delegates used to be a fairly homogeneous group of business and labor leaders, wealthy individuals, and politicians—and most of them were white, male, and middle age or older. But then in the 1970s and 1980s, the parties opened up the delegate selection process in an effort to populate the conventions with more women, minorities, and young people. The Democrats even went so far as to require that each state’s delegation to the national convention be equally divided between women and men.
In 2008, the Republican convention will seat about twenty-five hundred delegates, and the Democratic convention about forty-three hundred. Many “alternates” also attend the conventions; they have most of the privileges of delegates, but do not have voting rights.
Although the state delegations at the Democratic convention are larger than those at the Republican, both parties base the number of delegates per state on some combination of the state’s population and the relative strength of the party in the state—for example, by looking at how well the party’s nominee did in that state in the last presidential election.
Convention delegates are selected based on the results of the primaries and caucuses in their states, with most of the delegates coming to the convention pledged to support a specific candidate. In addition, the Democrats have uncommitted “superdelegates,” who automatically get a vote at the convention because of their position in the party. Superdelegates include all sitting Democratic governors and members of Congress, plus members of the Democratic National Committee. They account for about one in five of all delegates at the Democratic convention.
Instead of superdelegates, the Republicans award states a specific number of “at-large” delegates of their own choosing. The number of at-large delegates per state varies depending on the relative strength of the party in the state—for example, whether or not the state voted for the Republican candidate in the last presidential election, whether or not it has a Republican governor, and the percentage of Republicans in the state legislature and the state’s congressional delegation. At the GOP convention, a little more than one-quarter of the delegates will be at large.
Of course, the delegates aren’t the only people at the conventions. There are also hordes of media representatives and television pundits, along with issue advocates, from environmentalists and farmers to labor union and business representatives, who all want the party to embrace their issues.
You won’t see these people on the convention floor, though; their lobbying usually takes place behind the scenes at strategy meetings and after-hours receptions.
Convention Highlights: A Viewer’s Guide
There’s always a lot going on at the national party conventions, but a few key events will give you a good idea of how the party and its candidate are trying to present themselves to the voters.
The Image Machine
As the conventions have become more of a marketing event, the role of video, music, and other media have increased. A smart campaign manager will use all possible elements, including the candidate’s words and family, to create an attractive image the public will buy. A noted example was the Democratic convention of 1992, when candidate Bill Clinton, much disparaged as “slick Willie,” was repackaged as “the man from Hope.” A video that showed the teenage Clinton shaking hands with his hero, President John F. Kennedy, helped make the sale.
What to look for: Image-making can be fun, even moving, to watch, but keep in mind that the purpose of the presentation is to sell the candidate to the voters. Ask yourself whether the candidate is being presented realistically and whether thoughtful solutions to the nation’s problems are even discussed.
The Keynote Address
The keynote address is the first highlight of the convention. Presented by a prominent or up-and-coming politician in the party, the keynote serves to rally the party around a specific set of themes and issues and to convey the party’s message in a compelling way.
What to look for: Often, the selection of the keynoter is as important a statement of the party’s goals and direction as the speech itself. The keynoter might represent a state or region that the party feels it needs to capture—for example, the South or California—or perhaps an important segment of the electorate that the party wants to reach, such as women, minorities, or younger voters.
Giving the keynote can be a big boost for a politician who’s seeking national recognition. At the Democratic convention of 2004, Senate candidate Barack Obama made such a positive impression with his keynote address that he was instantly given status as a rising star in the party.
The Nomination of the Vice Presidential Candidate
Conventions invariably honor the wishes of the presidential nominee in the choice of a running mate, so the nomination of the vice presidential candidate is a formality.
What to look for: The selection of a vice presidential nominee usually is driven by an interest in balancing the party’s ticket for maximum vote-getting potential. A presidential candidate from the Northeast, for example, might select a running mate from the South or West, and a candidate from the party’s liberal or conservative wing might choose someone with more mainstream appeal. The ticket can also be balanced in terms of expertise, as when Texas Governor George W. Bush, with little foreign affairs experience, chose as his running mate former Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney.
The Acceptance Speeches
It used to be that candidates didn’t even go to the party conventions. But Franklin D. Roosevelt broke this tradition and flew to Chicago in 1932 to accept the Democratic Party nomination, and both party’s nominees have done so since then. Both the vice presidential and the presidential nominees give acceptance speeches on the convention’s final day.
What to look for: The presidential nominee’s speech is considered the most important speech of the campaign, setting the tone for the fall election, laying out issue priorities, and identifying key differences between the parties.
From the book, Choosing the President 20008: A Citizen’s Guide to the Electoral Process.Copyright 2008 by the League of Women Voters
Used by permission of Globe Pequot Press, www.globepequot.com
