Remember when there was such a thing as summertime reality TV before there was something actually called “Reality TV”? Remember when the networks dispensed with reruns to cover the Democratic and Republican National Conventions? Remember when these gatherings truly mattered and the uncertainty surrounding everything from what might happen next to the final result?
Well, not since the 1976 Republican presidential primaries between Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan has there been any uncertainty about the eventual presidential nominees.
Convention delegates also used to come together to come apart–honestly, if temporarily. They came to debate among themselves, of all people. At issue was this or that plank of their party’s platform, a presumably important document, the final version of which was supposed to express what the party actually stood for. But no more.
Remember 1972 and the raucous Democratic convention in Miami, where divisiveness was so much the order of the day–and night–that candidate George McGovern delivered his acceptance speech at the not-quite-prime-time hour of 3 a.m.? Now there was reality TV, the likes of which neither party will ever permit us to see again.
Instead of exposing their divisions, both parties now mandate a show of “diversity.” Exactly half of the Democratic delegates must be women. And the GOP will probably allocate prime-time speaking slots to a much higher percentage of blacks than will ever vote Republican in November.
Diversity is in; divisiveness is not. The last time that curtain was peeled back was 1992, when the issue was the content of a speech that was given–and one that wasn’t. Remember Patrick J. Buchanan and the late Pennsylvania Gov. Robert P. Casey? Leaders of both parties have remembered very well indeed.
By 1992, national political party conventions were already well on their way to becoming carefully choreographed variety (diversity?) shows, punctuated by one darn speech after another. Genuine debate may have been hustled off the floor by 1992, but at least an element of dissent could still be found at the podium. The GOP let Buchanan flail away at the sins of Bush I in particular and some of his fellow Americans in general, and the party went down to defeat. The Democrats refused to turn their podium over to the anti-abortion rights Casey, and Bill Clinton went on to victory in November.
Since then political conventions have become nothing more than intraparty love fests, while controversy has been reduced to bickering over who gets what time slot to give the next darn speech.
Not that conventions of the past were without large doses of mind-numbing boredom. The redoubtable journalist H.L. Mencken recalled enduring “long sessions, wishing heartily that all the delegates were dead and in hell …” But then something “so gaudy and hilarious … so preposterous” would happen that one could live a “gorgeous year in an hour.” An hour? Today’s viewers would settle for five minutes of deliciously unscripted spontaneity.
Are today’s exercises in scripted unspontaneity worth four nights of summertime prime time? Not when we have real reality TV to absorb us. After all, there really is some uncertainty (at least in the mind’s eye of the viewer) as to who will “survive” the “fear factor” or be fired by Donald Trump.
Ironic, isn’t it?
A half century ago the networks decided to televise these conventions because they didn’t have all that much to offer in midsummer anyway. But network executives soon discovered that these gatherings were also newsworthy exercises of democracy in action, not to mention scenes of intriguing drama.
So what happened?
The obvious answer is that primary elections have handed us our presidential nominees well in advance of the conventions. But there is an insidious answer as well. Having set out to capture that which was real, TV has gradually transformed these events into pseudo-events. In sum, what was once unquestionably real has become eerily unreal.
Last month the Democrats added to the general unreality of it all by adopting a series of platform planks on Iraq that should have provoked a furious debate. Amazingly, no one uttered a dovish peep, much less a “Deaniac” screech. It was all winks and nods, all sweetness and light. Meanwhile, no light was being shed on what the delegates were really thinking. Reality TV? If you’re looking for that, try “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette” instead. Better yet, take the dog for a walk or play ball with the kids.
Maybe, just maybe, the Republicans will present this week something other than a phony united front. After all, the GOP has given a key speaking slot to former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who is pro-abortion rights. But the best guess here is that he’s not going to use his prime-time slot to declare that America must defeat terrorism abroad in order to preserve abortion rights at home.
To be sure, many conservative Republicans are unhappy with President Bush over such crucial matters as immigration policy and overall government spending. But will they be heard? And if so, will there be a floor fight? In this age of made-for-TV politics, that would only occur if a delegate mistook a stray balloon for an unwelcome advance.
Speaking of balloons, isn’t it telling that the most honest visceral moment of the Democratic National Convention took place when the official balloon meister got caught on TV blowing his cool because the balloons were late falling onto the convention floor after John Kerry’s acceptance speech? If you think the GOP can match that for gut-wrenching reality, stay tuned. On the other hand, there’s always the family dog for psychological survival and your kid’s errant fastball to heighten that fear factor.
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