Political summits mean little
I look forward to the Democratic and Republican conventions next month with a mix of dread and indifference. Dread, because I fear they will showcase the ugliest parts of American politics. And indifference because they don’t mean much at all anymore.
I have a point of reference for that view, a moment when fascination with politics grabbed me and did not let go. It was 1960 in Los Angeles, and my minister father, Bob Herhold, was an alternate delegate from Minnesota to the Democratic convention.
My dad saw no problem in taking his 10-year-old son with him to caucuses of the delegation, and so I heard Hubert Humphrey and Stuart Symington up close. What I remember most, however, was the giant snowball on the convention floor.
For my father, and for more than a few liberals of his generation, there was no greater inspiration than Adlai Stevenson. While John F. Kennedy was the heavy favorite for nomination, the Stevenson people hadn’t given up.
The snowball
The snowball, a big mass of whitish, frilly material, was meant to show that there was a “snowball” of support for Stevenson, who had run unsuccessfully for president in 1952 and 1956. The Stevenson people hefted it proudly around the floor.
My dad’s mission in this plot was to pack the hall with Stevenson fanatics. He went around collecting credentials from sympathetic delegates. Then he stuffed them under his ministerial bib and passed them out to the Stevenson people outside the hall. Then he repeated the act.
I watched the snowball on television — even my dad could not get me into the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena — but the memory sticks with me. It was a time when politics was still fun, when its business side had not extinguished the passion or the joy.