The Ghosts of Nominating Conventions Past, Present and Future

Ghosts rattling their chains have been disturbing my sleep of late. There are three of them. They first appeared during the long run-up to the Republican convention in Philadelphia and have been increasing their din as we approach the Democratic convention right here in L.A. If I were younger, they would probably be trying to get my attention by masquerading as something out of "The X-Files," but due to my age and my profession as an English professor, they've chosen to appear as emanations from the imagination of Charles Dickens. Yes, they are the Ghosts of Nominating Conventions Past, Present and Future.

The Ghost of Nominating Conventions Past, who appears in the guise of an old-fashioned newsboy shouting "Extra! Extra! Read All About It," lifts the curtain on a scene in which the outcomes of the two parties' political conventions were quite unpredictable. Ballot after ballot might be cast before the nominee was chosen, as happened when the Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln in 1860. The vice presidential candidate could be anyone's guess until the convention was over, as happened a century later when Lyndon B. Johnson agreed to be John F. Kennedy's running mate. Even the party platform was hammered out on the convention floor.

In short, the nominating conventions were once genuine events in which genuine decision-making took place. And people paid attention to them. I still recall my grandfather, then nearly 80, tuning in to the 1964 nominating conventions, telling me that watching that year was important for him and my grandmother because they would probably be the last conventions they'd be alive to see. It would be their last performance of what they regarded as a civic duty.

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Enter the Ghost of Political Conventions Present, wearing sideburns and holding a television camera. The scene he reveals opens in 1972, the year in which America's nominating conventions caught up with the television age and took control of it. Keenly recalling the damage done to the Democrats in 1968, when uncontrolled TV coverage focused on rioters, not delegates, the Republicans that year produced the first fully scripted convention. Like a well-structured marketing campaign, nothing in 1972 was left to chance; every second was organized, including minute-by-minute cues for "spontaneous" demonstrations and applause. And the Grand Old Party was rewarded with a landslide victory.