28043877
My ideal convention would last just one day. We all know nothing is decided at conventions anymore. Everything is preordained and scripted. There are no surprises.
Gone are the days when state-by-state balloting actually decided the party’s presidential nominee. This year even the identity of the vice-presidential nominees are known. All that is left are the endless speeches and choreographed celebrations (why do the delegates always wear hats that Minnie Pearl would have tossed in the trash?). Just think how many balloons would be saved by the following reforms.
Shorten conventions to one day and include an innocuous non-denominational invocation that will not claim the Creator is on the side of one particular party. (The Lord reputedly voted by absentee ballot, otherwise he might have been asked to show a valid ID in Pennsylvania.)
Eliminate voting by state. We already know the outcome and it will do away with the head of the North Dakota delegation having to come up with a reason why that state is the greatest (It’s not).
A simple announcement of the party’s nominees will suffice. The phony celebration that follows will be limited to five minutes and clearly labeled as having been orchestrated and scripted by the respective national committee. The presidential nominee’s speech will be limited to 20 minutes while the vice-presidential nominee will speak for only 10 minutes as befits the lesser importance of the office.
The vice-presidential nominee will be allowed to freely offer his or her opinions instead of renouncing all previous beliefs that don’t concur with the top of the ticket. Eliminate the extended applause after each candidate says, “And I accept your nomination,” because the very fact that they showed up and spent millions of dollars on campaign ads would be really stupid if they weren’t going to accept their party’s nomination. A brief prayer to end the proceedings should follow asking God to forgive the hypocrisy of the evening. The convention should then be gaveled to a close, just in time for the 11 o’clock news. Note: If either party believes the votes of atheists could swing the election, the prayers should be replaced with recitations from the writings of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens or that famous atheist Ayn Rand.
As for the matter of party platforms, the convention chairperson should acknowledge up front that everyone ignores the platform. What follows is a list of platitudes expressing faith in the American voter (everyone knows we are scared witless at how easily many of them are led) and goals that can’t possibly be met (Democrats should be reminded they are as likely to cut the poverty rate in half as Joe Biden is to not say something embarrassing. Republicans should be reminded they don’t believe for a moment Americans will ever agree to forcing a rape victim to term). Bottom line: No one should take our platform seriously.
A good platform is one that is forgotten the moment it is set to paper. Perhaps the individual planks should be written using an Etch A Sketch. The one good idea put forth this election season by one of the Romney people.
If anyone at the convention expresses a belief that politics has gotten too extreme, the networks should immediately cut to clips from the 1964 Republican Convention where Barry Goldwater made his speech defending extremism and the delegates all but donned brown shirts. If anyone suggests there is too much friction within the party, the media should show clips from the ’68 Democratic Convention, which featured a riot outside the Chicago convention and Mayor Richard Daley making threatening gestures to Sen. Abraham Ribicoff inside the convention. That also was the convention where a security guard punched then-CBS correspondent Dan Rather in the stomach. For media haters, it doesn’t get any better than that. You might want to show that clip a couple of times.
A word must be said about former presidents who don’t come back to their party’s convention after leaving office. Former President George W. Bush, who was absent from this year’s Republican Convention, might have been too busy clearing brush or maybe not. I do not believe the scurrilous rumor that he stayed away from Tampa because he has an aversion to hurricanes since Katrina. It is more likely the Republicans did not want him at their convention when their big theme is reducing the deficit, given the way “Dubya” turned a surplus into a deficit faster than David Blaine can make an elephant disappear. Richard Nixon also became persona non grata in ’76 as did Lyndon Johnson at the ’68 Democratic Convention after the failed war in Vietnam helped him to decide not to run for re-election.
Political conventions are not without some accomplishments. They boost cable TV rerun ratings and force local news to cover something besides the latest water main break.
Contact the South Philly Review at editor@southphillyreview.com.
28043877
