Summer camp for political junkies

It’s theater with funny hats and big red, white and blue balloons. It’s summer camp for political junkies. It’s the culmination of the Great American Road Show, the arduous primary election campaign that ends with the coronation of the party’s nominees for president and vice president of the United States. And it starts Sept. 1.

   

When you walk out on the floor of a national political convention, is the one time you see so many people from all over the country who have the same love of country and political system you do.

   

Minor-league baseball players call the major leagues “The Show.” A national political convention is “The Show” to the party faithful who toil in the grassroots politics of hometown America.

   

Under a sea of camera lenses and the overhanging booths of television networks, you feel the empowering presence of the media. Most delegates, in fact, are more enamored of media personalities than with political notables. I have seen more autograph seekers swarm around Katie Couric and Peter Jennings than around Henry Kissinger or Jack Kemp. In Detroit, in 1980, I had to go through an executive suite where there was a cocktail party, and I happened to run into Elizabeth Taylor. We said hello, and we talked. I said, “What do you think of the convention?” She said, “It’s a real zoo.”

   

The media, in fact, are the central element of a convention, and the overriding goal of political strategists is to present the imagery that conveys the most positive messages.

   

Sometimes convention choreography gets out of hand. The youth squads recruited to cheer on cue occasionally cheered too long and helped push important speeches out of prime time. Several speakers, including Ronald Reagan and Barbara Bush, have had to gently admonish boosters.

   

While I have never attended a Democratic National Convention, it is fair to say Republican delegates are more reserved than their Democratic counterparts. Obviously, there are exceptions, but the Republican stereotype is true. They are generally upper-middle-class white Americans, and they are generally reserved, conservative and staid in their habits. I have rarely seen examples of extreme behavior.

   

Behind the orchestrated symbolism, ubiquitous partying and shmoozing and the wide-angle shot on a television screen, there is important work going on. Parties and campaign committees use conventions as fundraising vehicles and invite donors to participate in convention activities.

   

Lobbyists, too, abound at conventions, knowing that these quadrennial events offer golden opportunities to forward policy agendas in a relaxed atmosphere. And voting to nominate the leader of the free world is still regarded as an inspiring, patriotic moment in history.

   

While nominating conventions have become scripted, controlled forums that relegate issue debates to the background, drafting a party platform or party rules can be serious business.

   

I have witnessed several contentious battles as a member of the Platform Committee in Detroit in 1980 and in New Orleans in 1988. I was in the thick of the debate on the Rules Committee in San Diego in 1996 and as a member of the Credentials Committee in Kansas City in 1976, when Gov. Ronald Reagan and President Gerald Ford battled over Mississippi credentials.

   

Knowing the Bush-Quayle campaign in 1992 would present a draft to the Platform Committee, I met several weeks before the convention with a co-chairman, Rep. Bill McCollum of Florida, and the committee executive director and editor in chief to offer a plank on disability law and policy. It called for greater support for assistive technology for the Americans with Disabilities Act, was approved by the full committee.

   

Sometimes, individual speeches provide the most moving event of a convention. Such was the case with the speech given in 1992 by Mary Fisher, who as a personal witness to the growing number of women infected with HIV personified how HIV crosses all boundaries.

   

Amid the carnival and amiable bedlam and the multimedia binge is a remarkably stable and civilized affair. Somewhat anachronistic, but always exciting, the national political convention will be a part of the American landscape for years to come.