A look back at some of the features that made old-school conventions exciting TV viewing, and how they went extinct
President Ronald Reagan at the podium during the 1984 Republican Convention. Photo: Historical/Corbis via Getty Images Today’s observers may view this year’s virtual political conventions as a precedent-shattering event, given the absence of any central locations for speeches or even a live audience. But from another perspective, the 2020 conventions have simply consummated the process whereby a vast number of extras in a TV show with a shrinking audience finally became expendable.
But there’s only so much you can do with fallible human beings. Even in 2016, there were notable unscripted moments: Ted Cruz’s speech in Cleveland, in which he failed to deliver the expected endorsement of Donald Trump; and loud boos from Bernie Sanders delegates in Philadelphia when their hero praised nominee Hillary Clinton. No worries of anything like that happening this year.
.youtube[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/youtube/instances/ckduih6hy002v3h7cx1g6llhf@published"].border-top:before { content: 'Watch'; } At the 1980 Republican convention, a Walter Cronkite interview with Gerald Ford focused on rumors that the former president would become Ronald Reagan’s running mate, which then became a big story of its own.
If 1956 was good clean fun, the dark side of a convention veep choice was exhibited in 1972 when George McGovern, having been rejected by several running-mate prospects, turned to relatively young Missouri senator Tom Eagleton. This choice wasn’t popular, and led to a floor revolt the last day of the convention wherein multiple candidates challenged Eagleton, horribly messing up the convention schedule.
Other renowned television-era keynotes include Mario Cuomo’s 1984 keynote address, which might be as famous as Obama’s if he had ever run for president, and 1988 DNC opening act Ann Richards, who tore George H.W. Bush a new one. In the television era, perhaps the best-known platform fights were among Republicans in 1964, when dominant Goldwater supporters voted down civil rights and anti-extremism planks supported by party moderates, and in 1968, when Democrats debated Vietnam War planks.
This year, Republicans are voting by proxy and Democrats are voting remotely, so there likely won’t be much color from state delegates — though the Dems do have an event billed as a “Roll Call Across America” scheduled for Tuesday night. Spontaneous Demonstrations One bit of time-consuming nonsense that ended in the early 1970s as part of the move toward tight schedules and nominee-focused messaging was the tradition of “spontaneous demonstrations,” which were actually carefully planned stretches of time when delegates and all sorts of sanctioned interlopers would march around the conventional hall celebrating their candidate the moment his or her name had been placed in nomination.
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