Convention histories

All the world knows, and is possibly stifling a yawn at the knowledge, that on Monday the Democrats will meet in convention in San Francisco to speechify and have several party bigwigs remind the faithful that if Ronald Reagan is re-elected in November, it will mean the end of the republic and the coming of Armageddon.

But in the main, and in theory, the Democrats are there to choose their man to oppose Mr Reagan for the presidency and, again, in theory, they will do it by using an American institution that's designed to do nothing else but that – an institution over 150 years old that is unique in the politics of democracy, the presidential nominating convention.

In fact, as I shall hope to show and to lament, the main purpose of that institution was bypassed by the Kennedy brothers in 1960 and ever since we've been left with little more than the circus and the ritual trappings.

The convention system was invented in 1832. It was based on the frank recognition that this was a continental country of many climates and separate economies, no national newspapers – there still aren't – in which contact between all the scattered states was slow and difficult; in which, therefore, you had regional leaders. Some of these party leaders were elected in their own states, some were appointed, some just grew. When, once every four years, it was necessary to choose a president by popular election, the only way to discover the man who was most acceptable to most of the party, that's what they're looking for, not a wise man or a statesman, most acceptable to most of the party, the only way was to journey to a big city to have the various regional big shots plead the fitness of their particular man. It was more like a horse show than a conference. Everybody would look over two or three or half a dozen or more regional favourites and then the whole convention would ballot for the prize.

From the beginning, in 1832 until 1960, nobody knew for certain who would win the prize. Down those decades, the convention system developed a set of rules and stratagems that made it a fascinating game which combined the deadpan cunning of poker, the lazy, well-calculated suspense of baseball and the peculiar appeal of American football in disguising a chess game under the appearance of an armoured battle.

Now, to casual and particularly to foreign observers, the convention looks like a circus and, unfortunately, a circus, especially in the days of TV, is more colourful than the minds of poker players and wheeler-dealers working out bargains, suggesting threats, practising bluffs on the floor of the convention or in some hotel room. But the buttons and bows and the balloons and the piping music and the campaign boaters and the rest are a front, like the girl cheerleaders at a football game.

Let me first remind you of the unchanging rituals of all nominating conventions which, like most rituals, remain when the reality they represent has faded. On the Monday, the convention is called to order by the chairman of the convention, there's a prayer, one day by an Episcopalian, another by a Baptist, then a Catholic priest, then a Rabbi and on subsequent days, if any, by the shepherd of any other flock that bulks conspicuously in the party. That night there's a keynote speech delivered by a party chieftain. Next week it will be Governor Cuomo of New York, himself, by the way, a very real presidential possibility for the near future, since he's an able governor, he's charming, he's the rarity today of a politician who, on his feet, can be at once intelligent, moving and strikingly articulate.

Well, the keynote speech usually winds up the first day. After that come the passage, after sometimes a vigorous debate of the party platform, then the nominating speeches for as many candidates as there are loyal, little or big armies. I expect you'll hear soaring tributes to the integrity and courage and eloquence and God-given statesmanship and fitness of Walter Fritz Mondale and Gary Hart and Jesse Jackson, and maybe one or two others.

In the old days, at least half a day was taken up by speeches putting in nomination what were called 'favourite sons'. They were almost always governors of states with not the faintest chance of being chosen but they were idolised and fawned upon in these speeches just in case something incredible happened so the delegates from their state wouldn't be exposed as traitors to their own chief executive. Well, that ritual seems to have passed.

Then, on the third, usually the fourth, night, the chairman calls on the clerk of the convention to call the roll. He's usually a stentorian baritone who rises and intones 'Alabama!' The chairman of the Alabama delegation rises on the floor and announces the vote of his state for this demigod or that. And so on, till we get to and through Wyoming.

As many ballots are taken as are required to produce a man with a simple majority. The simple majority rule did not go into effect with the Democrats until 1936. Before then, they required a two-thirds majority to nominate, which is what made their conventions go on and on.

The prime, the now-unbelievable, example of this unavoidable longevity is 1924 when the Democrats assembled in New York City during a spell of its usual infernal July heat and I think I can best sharpen the contrast between the convention system as it was successfully practised for 128 years and the shadow of it as it is today by telling you something about the enormous joust in Madison Square Garden in that year, 1924.

I believe it was, as usual, on the fourth night that the clerk boomed out, 'Alabama!' and the balloting began. By 1924, of course, there were thousands of American newspapers, radio was beginning, the doings and the reputation of the main contestants were nationally known. There were only two of them, Governor Al Smith of New York and one, William Gibbs McAdoo, a former distinguished Cabinet officer under Woodrow Wilson.

Well, a ballot then was never a foregone recital. Some states were irrevocably committed to one man or the other, many more were not. Many states, through several ballots, trod water with their favourite sons. To persuade the hesitant states to take the plunge one way or the other, there were several opposing field marshals. They are known as the floor managers of each candidate. They roam between the delegations. They promise political goodies. They flatter the chairmen, they make impromptu dates to meet such men backstage or in a hotel.

The floor managers know the most powerful men in every state. Lincoln's floor manager, one David Davis, knew that Lincoln could be nominated if only Pennsylvania, with its flood of votes, would go for him. Mr Davis sought out one Simon Cameron, president of the Pennsylvania railroad. Mr Cameron said he thought he could swing his state if he could be subsequently appointed as secretary of war in a Lincoln Cabinet.

Mr Davis sent a telegram to Lincoln – candidates in those days never appeared in the convention city – Lincoln wired back, 'Make no deals for me'. Mr Davis showed the telegram to Mr Cameron who said, 'Well, that I suppose is that.' 'Hell!' said Mr Davis, 'He is there and we are here!' Mr Cameron got his promise. Pennsylvania and the convention went for Lincoln. Mr Cameron became secretary of war and Mr Davis, incidentally, was appointed to be a justice of the Supreme Court.

Well, back to the sweltering legions in Madison Square Garden in 1924. The balloting went on and on and neither Smith nor McAdoo could get a two-thirds majority. On and on through eight, nine days and nights – no break in the balloting by night. Overnight delegates can be cajoled, seduced, so they prayed and snoozed briefly while their so-called alternates held the fort. On the 71st ballot, McAdoo peaked and sagged, but on the 94th ballot he rose again. After the 99th ballot, both candidates released their men from all pledges of loyalty.

A third man, an amiable, Wall Street lawyer, one John W. Davis, had been collecting a smattering of votes. Now he began to pick up. After ten days and nights and 103 ballots, Davis was nominated. In the following November, he was massacred – electorally speaking – by the Republican incumbent, Calvin Coolidge. We shall never again see anything like that.

Most of the old skills and subterfuges and actual parliamentary devices have gone. Delegations rarely asked to be polled delegate by delegate, a delaying tactic. Delegations almost never pass a device for seeing how some big, friendly state later in the alphabet is going to go. No more do states demand recognition at the end of a ballot to be allowed to switch their vote. For, whenever one man was within grabbing distance of the nomination, the rush of states asking for recognition was like a stampede of hungry pigs for the pork barrel.

In 1960, the then-Senator John Kennedy and his brother, Robert rattled around, it seemed, the whole 3,000-odd counties of the country and twisted arms and promised the moon and in some states – it was alleged – bought, as the saying goes, the sheriffs. They did all the plotting and wheeler-dealing before the convention met. So, by the time we got to the convention at Los Angeles, nobody was going to stop Kennedy on the first and only ballot and nobody did.

Since then, television and opinion polls can tell us long before the convention how the party feels in Ohio and Texas and Florida and everywhere and, to make sure, they've all started to run primary elections where delegates pledge themselves, who once gave no pledge, before the convention. There used to be six primaries. This year there were 39. All the poker playing and the cajoling and the arm twisting has already been done.

We rarely have more now than one or two ballots. So now the convention has turned into a coronation and it is assumed by everybody that Mr Mondale already has the 1,967 delegates he would once have battled for in the convention.

That it will happen just this way I don't positively predict because I recall old H. L. Mencken, the most famous reporter of his day, at the 1932 Democratic convention. At two in the morning and before the final ballot, he had to file his piece for the Baltimore Sun. It was his deadline. He wrote, 'If one thing is certain in this Democratic hullabaloo at Chicago, it is that Franklin Delano Roosevelt will not be the nominee'. A few hours later, Roosevelt was nominated.

When Mencken got home to Baltimore and saw the file of his dispatches, he read the last piece and said, 'Those damn proofreaders forgot to delete the "not".'

This transcript was typed from a recording of the original BBC broadcast (© BBC) and not copied from an original script. Because of the risk of mishearing, the BBC cannot vouch for its complete accuracy.

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