The US election: party conventions

Some people have asked me whether I watched coverage of the Democratic Convention last week. The short answer is, no, I did not. Why not? After all, as an academic political scientist with American birth and upbringing, one would think it would interest me. But there are two reasons why I did not tune in. First, our television has not been working properly for several months now. Yes, we can still play videos and DVDs, but we can't receive any outside signals. To be honest, we've not really missed it.

Second, even if our television were functional, I probably still would not have watched it. When I was growing up in the 1960s and early '70s, party conventions still had work to do in choosing presidential and vice-presidential candidates. I recall the notorious 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, which saw turmoil within the hall and violence outside. At the outset it was by no means known who the party's presidential candidate would be. President Lyndon B. Johnson had bowed out of the race in March, although he certainly had the constitutional right to stand again for the office. However, his conduct of the Vietnam War, which was increasingly dividing the American public, left him with little credibility. Vice-President Hubert H. Humphrey was nominated at the end, but Eugene McCarthy put forth a credible effort to win the spot. Robert F. Kennedy would have been a powerful contender, had he not been assassinated in June.

As a result of the turmoil at the '68 convention, the Democratic Party instituted a series of reforms intended to break the hold of local party bosses on the candidate selection process and to make it more open and democratic. The Republican Party followed suit. Ironically, one of the effects of these reforms was to drain the convention of any genuine decision-making power, which now belonged to the voters voting in primary elections. Conventions are now little more than expensive pep rallies intended to build enthusiasm and momentum for the presidential candidate, whose identity is already determined. Well, I'm sorry but I've got better things to do.

On the other hand, having heard about Barack Obama's speech at last week's convention, I thought it worthwhile to check it out on the convention website. Obama is an Illinois state senator who is running to represent his state in the US Senate. Very impressive. Could he be the first African-American (and I do mean African, as in Kenyan) president? It is by no means beyond the realm of possibility.