Last edited Mon May 9, 2016, 03:46 AM - Edit history (1)
...that the Democratic Convention should be democratic!?
Oh please, spare us the mire!
Ah, it's USA Today. They would think that debates and voting are a mire.
I think debates and voting at the Democratic Convention would instead be miracle.
I remember when political conventions, especially the Democratic one, were fascinating--speeches from people all over the country, drama in the committee rooms where big fights over platform issues occurred, raucous nomination fights, inspiring and substantive speeches--all of--ALL OF IT--broadcast on TV. The 1960 convention was marvelous. I was a JFK supporter and my boyfriend, a year older and much more politically sophisticated (he came from a political family) was for Adlai Stevenson (who, I now realize, was, by far, the better leftist of the two).
There were quite a few politicians contending for the Democratic nomination--including LBJ, Hubert Humphrey, Stuart Symington, as well as JFK and Adlai. Eleanor Roosevelt was still alive then, was at the convention and gave the nomination speech for Adlai, who was actually carried by the delegates to the podium when he arrived, like he was a sports hero. He was very popular--but ultimately the convention didn't nominate him, likely because he'd lost twice to Dwight Eisenhower, the even more adulated war hero. That's what Eleanor Roosevelt says. Here's her memo on the 1960 convention:
https://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/mep/displaydoc.cfm?docid=jfk40
She has some interesting things to say about the level of democracy at Democratic Conventions, and as to nominating a presidential candidate, that are still relevant today. She discusses rule by party bosses--a corrupt system of patronage--rather than by the voters, and suggests reforming the nomination process. This jumped out at me:
One curious feature about political reform is that so many people feel it is "disloyal" to attempt to rectify the abuses in one's own party. And yet it is obvious that political morality is dependent upon the awakened conscience and private morality of the voters. Such "disloyalty" is simply an evidence of loyalty to principle. --Eleanor Roosevelt
I do think she underestimated JFK who, in the end, transformed himself into a believer in world peace, and likely died for that cause.**
The convention was in Los Angeles, near where I lived. My boyfriend's parents were delegates so we got to hang around. I have a snap color photo of JFK in his limousine smiling as he passed right in front of me, five or six feet away, as we stood around outside the L.A. Coliseum where he'd given his acceptance speech.
I did, though, watch most of it on TV. The platform fight over civil rights. All the speeches. Adlai being carried to the podium on the delegates' shoulders. The machinations that resulted in LBJ becoming JFK's VP. It was all so interesting, so alive, so important. TV commentators were serious, knowledgeable people who provided serious, knowledgeable insights to the public, even while they maintained strict rules of neutrality.
We can't expect that in the 21st century. The media have become partisan, bobble-headed idiots, and their bosses don't want anything that smells of democracy on
their TV screens. They have NO obligation these days to provide Public Service (as they did before Reagan killed the Fairness Doctrine laws), and they don't provide it. They pick and choose what it serves their profits to show us.
Even so, I do hope we have lots of "mire" at the Democratic Convention this year. Lots of debates on the issues, dissent, advocacy, votes from platform committee onto the floor, our representatives defending their positions and their candidate choices and of course I hope that the party bosses, who now run everything, change their minds about supporting Hillary Clinton, the worst candidate for the Democratic nomination that I've ever seen, and nominate the best candidate I've ever seen, Bernie Sanders.
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**(Recommended: "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters," by James Douglass.)
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