Real people stood out at convention
The Democratic Party is quickly learning what connects with viewers and what doesn’t in this new era of virtual political conventions.
What doesn’t work: Politicians standing in front of a bunch of flags and behind a podium and delivering a speech like they’re in an arena. Which they’re not. They’re in their garages.
What works: Real people talking about their lives. Or Michelle Obama, who is as close to a real person as it gets in politics.
One of the convention’s first stars was San Francisco resident Kristin Urquiza. She told the poignant story of the COVID19 death of her 65yearold father, whose “only preexisting condition was trusting Donald Trump.”
That impressed comedian W. Kamau Bell, host and executive producer of the Emmy Awardwinning CNN documentary series “United Shades of America.”
“I was like, whoa, I wish I’d written that line,” Bell, a Berkeley resident, told The Chronicle.
Bell said “one thing that Democrats did that made sense” was to play to the room. The living room.
“When you have a convention in an arena, there’s a tendency to get the most famous people you can,” he said — politicians or celebrities, or both.
There’s a downside to that. Politicians can come off as wooden when they deliver a standard speech without a crowd to applaud. Celebrities leave Democrats open to the Republican charge that they pander to Hollywood liberal elites.
There was some of that — Eva Longoria, after all, was the master of ceremonies Monday. But regular voters — people of color calling for racial justice, relatives of those who have died of COVID19, families struggling to get by and worried about health care— have gotten far more time, in a far more conversational, small screenfriendly way, than they would have at a normal convention.
Nonpoliticians lent an intimacy that is hard to replicate in a 20,000seat arena, said Greg Proops, a longtime comedian, TV star and podcast host who often focuses on politics.
For Proops, one of the most “extraordinary moments” was when Philonise Floyd led a moment of silence to honor his brother, George Floyd, and “the many other souls we’ve lost to hate and injustice.” Floyd said that “it’s up to us to carry on the fight for justice. Our actions will be their legacies.”
Creating that sort of intimate moment is nearly impossible in a cavernous arena where people are milling about and talking and eating. Proops said it is one of many ways that this format makes for better TV than what the political parties have been producing for the past 70 years.
“To be honest, I don’t miss the yelling and screaming at the conventions,” Proops told The Chronicle. “This (format) gives people a chance to have feelings and listen to intelligent people talk. It was a very good television show. I laughed. I cried.”
On Tuesday, the show included a twist on the timeworn tradition of having each state delegation recite its nomination votes for the candidates. Party officials still read the totals, but often with regular people alongside in iconic settings. In California, Oakland Rep. Barbara Lee and Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis announced the state’s totals from Cabrillo Beach in Los Angeles County, with people playing on the sand in the background.
There were some misses. Joe Biden’s conversation about racial justice Monday with four people seemed stilted, said Brad Adgate, a longtime media and advertising consultant. It didn’t help that Biden was sitting in a studio alone, asking questions of people who were on four video screens. It was far from intimate.
“It was a little awkward,” Adgate said. “He didn’t follow up. It would have been better if he had been in a conversation with them, had some giveandtake with them.”
Tuesday featured the same format with Biden and people fearful of losing their health care. It came off a bit better and gave the nominee a chance to hammer on Trump for supporting a lawsuit before the Supreme Court to strike down the Affordable Care Act.
Zenaida Huerta, a 22yearold delegate from Whittier (Los Angeles County), said she liked hearing from essential workers who had been affected by the coronavirus pandemic. But she said the first night’s format “seemed like it was a daytime talk show, where you had a celebrity moderator.”
She also missed the feeling of being in an auditorium, surrounded by other delegates and activists. Her idea to try to replicate that virtually: Show more images of delegates onscreen watching and reacting. Feature a breakout session of delegates discussing issues or what they’re seeing at the convention.
Politically, the most relevant speech was delivered by Sen. Bernie Sanders, the runnerup to Biden in the primaries. In far more definitive terms than he did four years ago, he urged his progressive followers to vote for the Democrat who had defeated him for the nomination.
But in terms of real people impact, the star so far has been Obama, who closed the proceedings Monday in a segment that scored the highest ratings in the San Francisco media market.
She succeeded because the former first lady is both a political person and someone who, as she reiterated Monday, “hates politics.”
“You forget how good she is and yet she has never won an elected office. You’re like, ‘Oh, you’re actually better at this than most of these people,’ ” Bell said. That’s because “she is very secure in who she is and what she is there to say.”
He added, “I was waiting for her to end it by saying, ‘And that’s why I’m announcing my candidacy for the Democratic Party nomination in 2020.’ ” Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicle’s senior political writer. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli