Conventional wisdom

Can anything good come from covid-19?

EVEN BEFORE H.L. Mencken, and even after Dan Rather, reporters gathered at the presidential nomination conventions every four years because there was actual news being made.

There were real bargains to be negotiated, scoops to be had, leaks to be given to Robert Novak. Oh, yes, and silly hats to be worn by the partisans.

Those were the good ol’ days, when not just the vice presidential pick was being chewed over in those smoke-filled rooms. But the top of the ticket, too. Well, sometimes. It’s been a while since a national party has had a brokered convention.

But it’s also been a while since any news at all came from these conventions. It’s been decades since Ted Kennedy was trying to wrestle the nomination away from a sitting president in 1980.

Right now, these gatherings are useless. Except to annoy folks at home who’d rather watch something else on television.

If any good news at all has come from the pandemic, it’s that the conventions will have to do a lot virtually this cycle, instead of meeting in person(s). The Democratic National Convention was supposed to start this week, but the confab won’t be held until next month, and it’ll be scaled down. A lot.

The DNC and the Joe Biden campaign have already said theirs will be a mostly virtual convention in August. Delegates will vote back home in their states.

The Republican Party still hasn’t decided how to handle things. But with North Carolina’s reluctance, and Florida’s surge in covid-19 cases, word has it that the party may look at outdoor venues in Jacksonville, Fla., for the big events.

And the GOP will also likely move some stuff online.

Maybe after this year, the party faithful will realize these conventions are just expensive infomercials. And only the most unrepentant, shameless and overt party hacks, fellow travelers and editorial writers actually watch them. Most Americans would rather watch a moth climb a drape.

Oh sure, sometimes a surprise guest like Clint Eastwood will show up to say something crude in a bizarre improv comedy scene that’s more improv than comedy. But party leaders and all their PR staffs don’t want to make news in the summer.

That’s too iffy for modern campaigns. Everything must be scripted, from the opening prayer to where the confetti falls.

These days, if the nominee and the veep pick aren’t selected before the convention, the party bosses would consider it a disaster in the making. The sign of a weak party. A divided party. Heaven help them in November. Even though no news is made anymore, everything is duly documented on all three networks and several cable shows: The requisite but dispensable video of the candidates’ youth. The parade of pols and former pols who must get their time before the cameras.

The advocates and lobbyists and politically connected bands and actors with the right viewpoints, and spouses of the nominees. They all get a few minutes until a production assistant gives the cue to play music.

Why do We the People put up with it?

The same argument can be made about the State of the Union address given most years. There is nothing required in the Constitution for this interruption of football playoff seasons. Our founding document says the president must, from time to time, give an update to Congress on the SOTU. But until TV came along, it was given mostly in writing.

Now it’s a two-hour ad for the party in power. Or at least for the party holding the White House, which is often enough only half the power.

Perhaps political conventions have become perpetual assemblies in which like-thinking folks can celebrate themselves and their ideas, and rub elbows with somebody who’s regularly featured on television. And boost a certain big-city economy by snapping up hotel rooms and boosting the overlarge-button shops in the vicinity.

But some reports show cities that host these conventions actually lose money.

The thousands of visitors who go into the cities cost money to police, for one thing, and nobody knows exactly how much normal business is disrupted as people stay away from parts of town that have the arenas.

But aren’t the nomination conventions supposed to heal the wounds of the primaries, and get everybody in the party together behind the ticket? Tell it to 2016, when Ted Cruz didn’t endorse Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders’ own people jeered when he endorsed Hillary Clinton.

Nah, these conventions are the stuff of the past. The parties, or maybe one party, could always take up the practice again if there’s a razor-thin primary one year.

This president is unconventional. Why not change the tradition, hold an hour-long infomercial on YouTube one night, and be done with it? Talk about a legacy.

Then, come January, provide the State of the Union message in PDF form.