Hopefully, The Debates Will Make Up For Lackluster Conventions

Hopefully, The Debates Will Make Up For Lackluster Conventions

By Ed Kociela

Like any other political wonk worth their salt, I dutifully tuned in to the RNC and DNC conventions the past couple weeks, not so much because of Joe Biden or Donald Trump, but because, well, I had to do it.

I come from an era when politics mattered because of statesmanship instead of bitter divisiveness.

Oh, there was a divide back then when I watched my first political conventions – particularly when John F. Kennedy accepted the nomination to run in 1960. But, that divide was nothing like what we face today.

Nonetheless, I was hooked on politics for life.

I was a kid, just about to turn eight at the time, but my parents followed politics closely.

Very moderate Democrats their entire lives, they still thought it was important to watch both conventions. It was the right thing to do, the way our system is supposed to work, the way our system was designed to work. Election night was like a national holiday in my house and I was allowed to stay up until the bitter end, even if it meant missing school the next day because it was that important. I regularly skipped school on Inauguration Day as well. I vividly remember the bitter-cold January day when Kennedy was sworn into office. It was biting cold as the new president raised his hand and took his oath of office in Washington, D.C., but it was horribly frigid in my native St. Louis with ice and snow and an Arctic chill that made my staying home from school an easy decision for mom. Besides, it was that important.

I tuned in to watch the conventions these last couple of weeks more so because of style rather than content.

I mean, the rhetoric was predictable to everybody, unless you just arrived from a galaxy far, far away.

There were no surprises. We knew what was going to happen.

But, I wanted to see how it happened.

These were not conventional conventions, to be sure, but, hey, 2020, you know?

There weren’t any smoke-filled rooms where stodgy old men chomping on cheap cigars anointed a nominee. There weren’t any delegates with their colorful hats and buttons and banners demonstrating on the convention floor because, well, there was no convention floor like in the old days when whiskey-soaked delegates took an often poetic run at extolling the virtues of their candidate and the wave of support from the Great State of Wherever that he could ride to the presidency.

It was always a hell of a show and every now and then, there was the threat of a brokered convention where it was all up for grabs. Last time that happened was when the two parties were twisted around different candidates before ending up with Democrat Adlai Stevenson and Republican Dwight Eisenhower in 1952. We’ve come close several times since, and while the possibility of a brokered convention sits as a plum out there for dyed-in-the-wool politicos, party leaders don’t particularly take to all of the drama. They say it is bad for the image and takes some of the shine out of whoever emerges with the nomination.

There was, of course, no threat of that occurring this year as Biden and Trump had it all sewed up going in.

But, what remained to be seen was how they would dot all the “I’s” and cross all the “T’s.”

What we got was two very different approaches, one resembling a rather elongated infomercial, the other a C-level reality show. Who presented the best show is a matter of personal taste and judgment. There was no pomp, but plenty of circumstance in the DNC approach, and excessive pomp – especially in this year of COVID-19 – and almost no circumstance from the RNC.

The manner in which it all took place is more revelatory than the rhetoric espoused.

On one hand, we saw a textbook example of narcissism, clinically defined as selfishness involving a sense of entitlement, a lack of empathy, and a need for admiration, as characterizing a personality type featuring a silver spoon-fed elitist whose ego would not allow one day of the convention go by without a droning, apocryphal screed.

On the other, we had an example of a guy who has perfected the “Aw, shucks!” persona while maintaining the clarity of a wily fox and the deadly lure of a cobra’s dance.

How this all plays out in the real world remains to be seen. Regardless, I am taking no bets. There are too many wildcards in the deck.

It is also difficult to predict how conventions in future political seasons will go down.

Will we have abbreviated affairs where a lot of the fat is trimmed or will the parties still treat their conventions as free air time to blather on endlessly, soaking viewers in redundant, unfettered, unchecked ideology?

Truthfully, I would be very surprised if either convention stole many voters from the other side during the conventions this year. If you are gung-ho enough to watch an entire convention, whether the DNC or RNC, you are more than likely going to stay with the home team and not drift across the party line. That is the kind of decision that takes more than a well-staged week of buffed up speeches and exhortations by party simpaticos looking to make an impression no matter how many derrieres they have to kiss along the way. The decision to switch teams comes with a fair amount of deliberation and thought, something most party sycophants are not capable of on either side.

If the conventions did anything, they opened the door to more interest in the upcoming debates.

For the first time since Kennedy-Nixon, there is a real possibility that the debates may actually become debates, rather than simply the exchange of talking points. Because of the enmity between the parties involved, the debates should not only be lively, but highly contentious. These people really do not like each other and will be going for the jugular. There will be neither grace nor mercy.

We don’t yet know who the moderators will be, but I am hopeful that each debate will have live fact-checkers on hand to call out the falsehoods in real-time.

It would certainly make up for the lack of excitement at the conventions..

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