Part Ritual, Part TV Show

By John F. Stacks

Does a political convention have any real purpose? Yes

Twenty thousand people poured into Detroit last week to attend the Republican National Convention. They did so at great personal expense and not inconsiderable inconvenience, and they did so even though they knew that the convention does not really do what it was designed to do: select a presidential candidate. The delegates have become bit players in what amounts to a ritual drama.

From the first full-scale convention in 1831 until 1972, the delegates actually did select a nominee, although the question was frequently settled by party leaders and bosses well before the convention met. In fact, no convention since 1952 has taken more than one ballot to pick its candidate.

But the drive for a true change in the role of the nominating convention began after the Democratic disaster in Chicago in 1968, at which the wheel-horses of the local political organizations chose Hubert Humphrey over Eugene McCarthy, to the accompaniment of street rioting.

So many Democrats that year opposed the war in Viet Nam so strongly that incumbent Lyndon Johnson chose not to seek reelection, and although the convention dutifully picked Johnson's Vice President, Humphrey lost the election at least partly because of the discontent that the convention left behind.

Reformers in the Democratic Party then rewrote their rules and turned the selection process over to the voters, who were asked to stage a primary or caucus in each state. Primaries were not new. For years they had been essentially "beauty contests" that tested a candidate's appeal to the voters but did not usually bind the convention delegates. In 1952, for example, Estes Kefauver swept through the 15 primaries, only to be denied the nomination by party bosses who gave it to Adlai Stevenson instead. Under the new rules drafted after 1968, the results of the primaries became binding on convention delegates. "Direct democracy" had triumphed. The convention, rather than choosing a President, simply celebrated the result. Says Kansas Senator Nancy Kassebaum, whose father Alf Landon was nominated at a "real" convention in 1936: "I miss the rough-and-tumble. This is all a little sanitized."

The convention is now a series of rituals: wearing a funny hat, collecting buttons and hangovers; even appearing on television--no small inducement. And the odds on being seen back home have improved over the years. The 1980 convention floor was packed not only with hordes of network reporters but also flocks of local television crews from all over the country, videotaping their delegations.

The importance of television can hardly be overstated. It was in 1972 in Miami Beach that Richard Nixon took the modern convention to its full contemporary role--a four-day-long TV show. His aides actually wrote a script for the convention. Last week's extravaganza went so far as to include the appearances of key Republicans on morning and evening television news shows as part of the daily convention schedule. The timing, the lighting, the selection of entertainers, the sequence of speakers, the music, the makeup on the politicians' faces, everything was for television.

To the delegates in the huge studio of the Joe Louis Arena, the TV men were the stars. High above the convention floor, the anchormen looked down on the proceedings like actors regarding an audience. On the floor, the delegates jammed up around the Rathers and the Brokaws, who were elegantly attired in starched shirts, collar pins, expensive suits--and sneakers to save their feet. Between interviews, the media celebrities signed autographs.

Television years ago captured the political convention. But the political convention also captured television. The ratings wars depend in part on the network performance at the conventions, and the networks spare no expense ($30 million and 1,800 people for the 1980 Republican Convention) to make a show of it. The networks have in some measure replaced the parties as the vehicles of organization and information. Without television there is no convention. Without television there is no campaign. But with television, the convention is more than a few thousand people perspiring in the same large room. With television, the political convention is a national event.

To be sure, much of what is seen is falsified, show-biz fashion (Donny and Marie Osmond "lip-synched" their songs). In the age of television, however, access to the medium is access to the voter. Reagan Pollster Richard Wirthlin believes there are two periods in the general election campaign during which voters make their decisions. The first is at convention time; the second is in the last ten days of the campaign. The convention commands attention and helps the nation decide who shall be President.

That the delegates are extras in a stage production certainly reduces their importance at convention time. But their importance in politics is not diminished. These are the workers, the activists, the spear carriers in the political armies that form every four years. Their reward is the pleasure of a shared cause, the satisfaction of a victory they helped to produce. For them the convention is a reunion and a reassurance that others care about the same things. They share their enthusiasms, their passion for politics, and they, like conventioneers everywhere, have parties and enjoy themselves. Says a first-time conventioneer, Lois Lipson: "I'm an inveterate people watcher. Last night I met Liz Taylor. I've never had so much fun in my life."

They all had fun in Detroit last week, but the convention commanded less than the overwhelming attention of the American people. The barrage of opening-day speeches drove many viewers to even the dreariest local programming. Only Wednesday night's drama of the bargaining over Jerry Ford and Reagan's Thursday night acceptance speech provided good theater. It is possible that the convention will soon adjust to the public impatience: shorter conventions, fewer and shorter speeches and less of the boring ritual. The politicians will adapt, or if they do not, television will simply reduce its coverage when there is no real conflict to report. Coverage of next month's Democratic Convention will probably use even more hours.

Nonetheless, the conventions, as pageants and pep rallies and political institutions, will continue to serve an important function. For all their tedium, their cost and their predictability, they are a vital link between the presidential candidates and the nation in the age of television.

-- By John F. Stacks

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