National convention us. National Conventions in US Politics: A Comprehensive Guide

What are national conventions in US politics. How do political parties select their presidential candidates. Why are national conventions important for parties and voters. When do national conventions take place in the election cycle. Who attends national conventions and what roles do they play.

The Purpose and Function of National Conventions

National conventions serve as pivotal events in the American political landscape. These quadrennial gatherings bring together party members, delegates, and leaders to officially nominate candidates for president and vice president. But their role extends far beyond mere formalities.

Primary functions of national conventions include:

• Formally selecting and announcing the party’s presidential and vice-presidential nominees
• Adopting the party’s official platform and policy positions
• Energizing the party base and rallying supporters
• Showcasing party leaders and rising stars
• Generating media coverage and public interest in the upcoming election

While the actual nomination process has evolved over time, conventions remain crucial for party unity and messaging. They provide an opportunity for parties to present a cohesive vision to the American public.

The History and Evolution of National Conventions

National conventions have been a staple of American politics since the 1830s. Originally, they were the primary means of selecting presidential candidates, with party insiders and power brokers often making deals behind closed doors.

How have conventions changed over time? In the early 20th century, primary elections began to play a larger role in the nomination process. By the 1970s, reforms in both major parties led to a more open and democratic selection process. Today, the presumptive nominees are usually determined well before the conventions through state primaries and caucuses.

Despite this shift, conventions remain important events on the political calendar. They have evolved into carefully choreographed media spectacles designed to introduce candidates to a national audience and build momentum for the general election campaign.

Notable Convention Moments in History

• 1896: William Jennings Bryan’s “Cross of Gold” speech at the Democratic National Convention
• 1924: The contentious “Klanbake” Democratic convention that took 103 ballots to nominate a candidate
• 1968: Protests and violence outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago
• 1980: Ted Kennedy’s concession speech at the Democratic convention
• 2008: Barack Obama becomes the first African American to accept a major party’s presidential nomination

The Structure and Organization of Modern Conventions

Contemporary national conventions are massive undertakings, requiring years of planning and substantial resources. They typically last four days and feature a carefully curated program of speeches, videos, and ceremonial events.

Key components of modern conventions include:

1. Platform committee meetings to finalize party positions
2. Speeches by party leaders, rising stars, and special guests
3. Roll call votes to formally nominate candidates
4. Acceptance speeches by the presidential and vice-presidential nominees

How many people attend national conventions? The size can vary, but recent conventions have hosted thousands of participants. For example, the 2004 Democratic National Convention had 4,353 delegates and 611 alternates, while the Republican National Convention that year included 2,509 delegates and 2,344 alternates.

The Role of Delegates in National Conventions

Delegates play a crucial role in national conventions, serving as representatives of their states or territories. They are responsible for casting votes to nominate the party’s presidential and vice-presidential candidates.

How are delegates chosen? The process varies by party and state, but generally includes a combination of:

• Election at state or local party conventions
• Appointment by state party leaders
• Automatic delegate status for elected officials and party leaders

Delegates may be pledged to support a specific candidate based on primary or caucus results, or they may be unpledged (also known as superdelegates in the Democratic Party). The role of unpledged delegates has been a subject of debate and reform in recent years, particularly within the Democratic Party.

Types of Convention Delegates

1. Pledged delegates: Bound to support a specific candidate based on primary or caucus results
2. Unpledged delegates: Free to support any candidate (Democratic Party)
3. At-large delegates: Represent the entire state
4. District-level delegates: Represent specific congressional districts
5. Alternates: Stand in for delegates who cannot attend

The Impact of National Conventions on Elections

National conventions can have a significant influence on the trajectory of presidential campaigns. They offer candidates a unique platform to introduce themselves to a national audience and articulate their vision for the country.

How do conventions affect voter perception and election outcomes? Research has shown that well-executed conventions can provide a “bounce” in public opinion polls, sometimes as much as 5-10 percentage points. However, the impact of this bounce has diminished in recent election cycles as the electorate has become more polarized.

Conventions also serve as launching pads for future party leaders. Many politicians have used convention speeches to catapult themselves onto the national stage, such as Barack Obama’s keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

Factors Influencing Convention Impact

• Quality and reception of keynote speeches
• Unity (or lack thereof) displayed by the party
• Media coverage and narrative framing
• Timing relative to the opposing party’s convention
• External events and national mood

The Media’s Role in Covering National Conventions

Media coverage plays a crucial role in shaping public perception of national conventions. In the past, television networks provided gavel-to-gavel coverage of convention proceedings. Today, coverage is more selective, focusing on prime-time speeches and analysis.

How has media coverage of conventions evolved? The rise of cable news and digital media has transformed convention coverage. Parties now compete for attention in a fragmented media landscape, leading to more tightly scripted and visually appealing productions.

Social media has also become an important factor, allowing parties and candidates to communicate directly with supporters and bypassing traditional media filters. This has led to new strategies for engaging viewers and generating buzz around convention events.

Challenges in Convention Media Coverage

1. Balancing substantive reporting with the spectacle of the event
2. Providing context and fact-checking in real-time
3. Navigating partisan spin and messaging
4. Capturing the atmosphere and energy of the convention floor
5. Adapting to changing viewer habits and preferences

The Future of National Conventions in American Politics

As the political landscape continues to evolve, questions arise about the future role and format of national conventions. Some argue that conventions have become outdated in an era of instantaneous communication and year-round campaigning.

How might conventions change in the coming years? Several possibilities have been discussed:

• Shorter, more focused events
• Greater integration of digital and virtual elements
• More interactive experiences for delegates and viewers
• Increased emphasis on policy discussions and platform development
• Exploration of alternative formats to engage younger voters

Despite these potential changes, national conventions are likely to remain important events in the American political calendar. They provide a unique opportunity for parties to showcase their candidates, energize their base, and present their vision to the nation.

Factors Shaping the Future of Conventions

1. Technological advancements in communication and media
2. Shifts in voter engagement and political participation
3. Changes in campaign finance regulations
4. Evolution of the primary and caucus system
5. Public perception of political institutions and processes

As we look to the future, national conventions will likely continue to adapt to the changing political landscape while maintaining their core functions of nominating candidates and unifying party supporters. Their ability to capture the attention of the American public and shape the narrative of presidential campaigns ensures their ongoing relevance in the electoral process.

Understanding the history, structure, and significance of national conventions provides valuable insight into the workings of American democracy. These events serve as important milestones in the election cycle, offering a window into the values, priorities, and strategies of the major political parties. As voters and engaged citizens, we can use this knowledge to better interpret and participate in the democratic process, making informed decisions about the future leadership of our nation.

Definition of national convention in U.S. History, Political Science.

Examples of national convention in the following topics:

• The National Convention

• Hosting Conventions

  • The major political parties in the U.S. host the Democratic and Republican National Conventions to select candidates and rally supporters.
  • Due to the national media presence surrounding presidential nominating conventions, they are also excellent tools to showcase a given party’s leaders and policies to prospective voters.
  • The two major political parties in the U.S. host the quadrennial Democratic National Convention and Republican National Convention to determine their respective presidential and vice presidential candidates.
  • The Democratic National Committee administers the Democratic National Convention while the Republican National Committee administers the Republican National Convention.
  • Presidential nominating conventions, like the Democratic National Convention, host influential speakers to increase party unity.

• National Convention

  • The 2004 Democratic National Convention counted 4,353 delegates and 611 alternates.
  • The 2004 Republican National Convention had 2,509 delegates and 2,344 alternates.
  • Generally, usage of “presidential nominating convention” refers to the two major parties’ quadrennial events: the Democratic National Convention and the Republican National Convention .
  • The 2004Democratic National Convention counted 4,353 delegates and 611 alternates.
  • The 2004 Republican National Convention had 2,509 delegates and 2,344 alternates.

• The National Convention

  • Political parties hold national conventions to nominate candidates for the presidency and to decide on a platform.
  • The 2004 Democratic National Convention counted 4,353 delegates and 611 alternates.
  • A national convention is a political convention held in the United States every four years by political parties fielding candidates in the upcoming presidential election.
  • The 2004 Democratic National Convention counted 4,353 delegates and 611 alternates.
  • An image from a newspaper article about the 1876 Democratic National Convention in St.

• Selecting Candidates

  • Election candidates have often been determined before conventions, but are still formally declared as their party’s official candidates at the conventions.
  • The Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee create the rules governing the caucuses and primaries in which the field of presidential nominees is narrowed.
  • The presidential candidates of the two major political parties in the United States are formally confirmed during the Democratic National Convention and Republican National Convention.
  • In recent years, presidential nominees have been known well in advance of the Democratic and Republican National Conventions due to changes in election laws, earlier primary elections and caucuses, and the manner in which political campaigns are run.
  • Bush and Dick Cheney were declared the official presidential and vice presidential candidates at the 2004 Republican National Convention.

• Nominating Candidates

  • In the 2012 U.S. presidential election, Mitt Romney was the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee before the party’s national convention; he was not officially nominated by the party, but because he had won the party’s primary election, the official nomination at the convention was a mere formality.
  • In order to formally select candidates for a presidential election, American political parties hold nominating conventions .
  • In modern presidential campaigns, however, nominating conventions are largely ceremonial.
  • The presumptive nominee is not formally nominated until the national convention, but he or she is all but assured of a place on the ballot in the general election by the conclusion of the primary season.
  • Modern nominating conventions are largely ceremonial affairs, intended to strengthen party support of its presumptive nominee.

• The People’s Party and the Election of 1896

  • The 1896 Democratic convention opened at the Chicago Coliseum on July 7, 1896.
  • By 1896, the Democratic Party took up many of the People’s Party’s causes at the national level, and the party began to fade from national prominence.
  • The “Cross of Gold” speech was delivered by Bryan, a former congressman from Nebraska, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on July 9, 1896.
  • In the address, Bryan supported bimetallism or “free silver,” which he believed would bring the nation prosperity.
  • 1896 Democratic Convention where Bryan delivered his famous “Cross of Gold” speech.

• The Constitutional Convention

  • The Constitutional Convention was established in 1787 to replace the Articles of Confederation with a national constitution for all states.
  • The result of the convention was the United States Constitution, placing the convention among the most significant events in the history of the United States .
  • At the Convention, several plans were introduced.
  • Delegates opposed to slavery were forced to yield in their demands that slavery practiced within the confines of the new nation be completely outlawed.
  • This was eventually adopted by the Convention.

• The Hartford Convention

  • At the Hartford Convention of 1814, New England Federalists met to discuss their grievances over current events.
  • His report, delivered three days later, called for resisting any British invasion, criticized the leadership that had brought the nation close to disaster, and called for a convention of New England states to deal with their common grievances and common defense.
  • The convention ended with a report and resolutions, signed by the delegates present and adopted on the day before final adjournment.
  • This changed public sentiment toward the current administration and discredited the complaints of the Federalists, contributing to their final downfall as a major national political force.
  • Describe the political and economic circumstances that gave rise to the Hartford Convention

• Federalists and Antifederalists

  • At the Convention, the primary issue was representation of the states.
  • Eventually, the Compromise was accepted, and the Convention was saved.
  • Compromises were important in settling other disputes at the Convention.
  • This led to the Electoral College system in choosing the Chief Executive of the nation.
  • Anti-Federalists such as Patrick Henry attacked the Constitution, suggesting that it would lead to a dangerously powerful national government.

National Nominating Convention | tutor2u

National Nominating Conventions are
huge rallies that the major political parties put on in the run up to a
Presidential Election which officially marks the end of the primary election
season and the beginning of the General Election campaign. It is here that the
party’s nominee is officially confirmed. However, the nominee is often known in
advance and they are now more ceremonial than practical.

Typically, it is just the Democrats and Republicans that put on their conventions, but smaller parties have been known to put on conventions too. These have included the Green Party USA, Socialist Party USA, Libertarian Party, Reform Party and the Constitution Party.

When hosting the conventions, it is often traditional for the party of the incumbent President to go second. Conventions will typically take place in July or August.

At the conventions, state delegates, which are agreed before the primary process will cast their votes for whoever has won the state during the primary process. Some states operate a proportional system in which candidates will win the support of a percentage of delegates depending on their vote share, whilst others will adopt a winner take all system. In recent conventions however the party already knows who the nominee is going to be.

In conventions where the nominee is not known in advance, it is known as brokered convention. However, parties will normally seek to avoid this as a party that knows who the nominee is going to be looks united. In addition to the the other candidates may well ‘surrender’ the delegates they had won during the primary seasons in order for the party to look united.

Functions of Conventions

There are both formal and informal functions of the National Nominating Conventions.

Formal Functions

• Choosing the Presidential Candidate
• Choosing the Vice Presidential Candidate
• Deciding on the Party Platform – This will be a statement of the party’s policies that they will implement if they win the election. Similar to a UK General Election Manifesto

Informal Functions:

• Creating party unity – The convention is the only time the party meets as a whole. Between elections the party is essential just 50 state parties operating on their own
• Excite the party faithful – Allows those party members to really get behind the candidate and believe in them
• Excite ordinary voters into voting for their candidate.

However, despite all the functions, some political commentators have declared that party conventions are now no longer important. This is based on the fact that the nominees are known in advance, the Vice Presidential candidates are chosen by the nominee and not the convention, TV stations no longer air the full conventions and the presence of spin in the conventions to make the party look united.

On the other hand it can be argued that conventions still maintain an important place in US politics as the informal functions are still important, a disunited part loses elections as the Republicans did in 1992.

What’s the Purpose of the Republican and Democratic National Conventions?

The balloons and confetti. Those funny hats. A catchy slogan. A few gauzy biographical videos, and many, many canned, repetitive speeches. One big final embrace. More balloons.

In a few nightly doses on television every four years, the Republican and Democratic National Conventions seem like little more than political pageants—pricey infomercials for the parties and their candidates. And in many respects, that’s what they have become.

Decades ago, power brokers, big-money donors, and thousands of delegates descended on a chosen city with the goal of picking and then nominating candidates for president and vice president. Since 1980, however, that purpose has changed: The conventions now are designed to sell, rather than select, the politicians who rank-and-file voters chose at the polls. They are made-for-television productions that build over four days toward a grand finale—the lengthy address that offers nominees an opportunity to introduce themselves to voters, rally the party faithful, and audition for the role of president.

“The acceptance speech is the only unmediated communication, aside from television advertising, that a candidate can have with the voters,” said Robert Shrum, the veteran Democratic consultant who has advised Ted Kennedy, Al Gore, and John Kerry at conventions over the years. “The convention, if done properly, allows you to set out a narrative and that narrative is something that voters can relate to. ”

In Cleveland, Donald Trump has vowed to shake up what he has called a “boring” format by bringing in some of his non-politician athlete and celebrity friends. He’s also suggested he might speak to the convention every night and dramatically unveil his running mate at the last minute—all in the name of spicing up what has become a formulaic ritual.

The Democratic convention in Philadelphia, on the other hand, should look a lot like the recent past, with speeches from the Clintons, Hillary’s yet-to-be-announced running mate, President Obama and Vice President Biden, likely Bernie Sanders, and a few of the party’s rising stars.

Technically, the conventions for both Republicans and Democrats are formal party proceedings. Each is a dressed-up legislative session held in an arena, where delegates vote on matters that have both symbolic and actual importance, including the party platform, rules, and, yes, the presidential and vice presidential nominees.

The Nominees

Only in the last 30 to 40 years have the roll-call votes for president and vice president been faits accomplis. Before the 1970s, the primaries and caucuses that preceded the conventions “were of limited importance,” said Julian Zelizer, a political historian at Princeton University. The conventions frequently began with multiple viable candidates for the nomination who made their pitches to party leaders and coalitions of state delegations. The parties sometimes needed several ballots to determine the nominee, who often had to negotiate with the party on the selection of a running mate. In 1924, Democrats met in New York for 16 days, the longest political convention in U.S. history. It took nine days and 103 ballots to nominate John W. Davis, who went on to lose to the incumbent, President Calvin Coolidge, in the general election.

If nothing else, anti-Trump forces should be able to succeed in adding drama.

The last “contested convention” occurred for Republicans in 1976, when President Gerald Ford held off a challenge from Ronald Reagan to capture the nomination. Four years later, Ted Kennedy failed in his bid to wrest the Democratic nomination from President Jimmy Carter in New York by trying to get the party to release delegates bound to Carter.

As Republicans prepare to head to Cleveland, a group of delegates wants to toss Donald Trump from the top of the ticket. Polls show that Trump would be the most unpopular major-party nominee in history, but the “Dump Trump” coalition still has decades of history trending against it. Since primaries and caucuses became the principal means of nominee selection 40 years ago, no candidate in either party who has entered a convention with the most delegates has failed to secure the nomination.

If nothing else, anti-Trump forces should be able to succeed in adding drama to the roll-call vote on his nomination, which in recent conventions have been ratified by acclamation as a show of party unity. Trump’s former presidential rivals, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and John Kasich, will have a chance to formally receive the delegate votes they won during the primaries. Even after the bitter contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in 2008, the Democratic Party arranged for Clinton to appear on the convention floor and call for a suspension of the roll-call vote to demonstrate her support and rally her backers behind Obama. Democrats are hoping Bernie Sanders will agree to a similar maneuver this summer in Philadelphia, although it seems unlikely the same will happen with Republicans in Cleveland.

The Delegates

More than 4,000 Democratic delegates and nearly 2,500 Republican delegates are the worker bees of the two conventions. They’ll come from all 50 states and the territories, elected by different means: State parties have varying and often complicated ways of choosing who they send. Their chief responsibility is to vote for the nominees for president and vice president, the party platform, and other more procedural motions.

Both parties have some delegates that enter the convention unpledged to any candidate, but the Democrats have hundreds more. The “superdelegates” were created before the 1984 election as a backstop for the party establishment, which wanted to exert some control over the nominating process and possibly stop rank-and-file voters from choosing a potentially toxic candidate. The superdelegates, who now number more than 700 and include members of Congress, governors, and the former presidents (like Hillary Clinton’s husband!), have never defied the will of the voters. Despite the short-lived efforts of Clinton in 2008 and possibly Sanders this year, they likely won’t in Philadelphia, either.

The vast majority of the delegates in the two parties are bound by party rules to vote for a certain presidential candidate according to the outcome of their state’s primary or caucus. As opposed to the superdelegates, the job of being a regular, pledged delegate is neither particularly glamorous nor powerful. “Generally it’s like a badge of honor,” Zelizer said. “It’s the ability to participate in a historic political moment.”

“Barring some really unexpected turn at the Republican convention,” he added, “they don’t really have much power other than to raise their hand and vote. It’s not as if when they go back to their states they’re these power brokers because they’ve been at the convention. It really is largely symbolic.”

The Platform and Rules

Delegates are also responsible for voting on the party platform. As with the nominees, the vote on the convention floor, usually held early in the week, has in recent years amounted to an affirmation of a document written weeks beforehand by committee. There’s good reason to believe that the platform vote in both parties could be more interesting this year, however.

On the Republican side, delegates who opposed Trump in the primaries are expected to push for a conservative platform that affirms party orthodoxy on a number of issues from which the presumptive nominee has wavered or outright departed. That could include support for free trade, staunch opposition to abortion, lower taxes, and so on. Concerned with Trump’s ideological inconsistency and his willingness to change positions on a whim, conservatives want either to force him to embrace longstanding GOP policies or ensure that his flexibility on the issues doesn’t lead to a permanent shift in the party.

Uncontroversial platforms, ratified during the afternoon, away from the glare of network broadcasts, are quickly forgotten.

For their part, Democrats tried to open up their drafting process early on, holding regional hearings throughout the country in a bid to engage a broader cross-section of the party. The platform committee heard testimony from 114 witnesses over several weeks, party officials said. In the past, the committee met in one location for just two days.

Bernie Sanders may complicate that effort. He has tried to leverage his endorsement of Clinton to get a more progressive platform and eliminate superdelegates from future nominating battles. In the draft platform adopted in June, Sanders and his supporters won language endorsing the abolition of the death penalty—a first in party history—and declaring that “all Americans should earn at least $15 an hour.” Both of those positions are more progressive than the positions Clinton took on the campaign trail. Sanders lost his bid to have the platform oppose ratification of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal Obama negotiated that Clinton has recently come out against.

How much does the platform matter, anyway? It’s mainly a statement of principles. Candidates up and down the ballot—including the presidential nominee—are under no obligation to endorse or run on every item. As Zelizer said, “It’s usually the fights over the platform that matter more than the platform.” Uncontroversial platforms, ratified during the afternoon, away from the glare of network broadcasts, are quickly forgotten. The debates that command attention, however, show how the parties are divided and how their principles are shifting.

For party insiders, the most consequential document is the set of rules that govern both the convention and the next election’s nominating process. Democrats don’t actually vote on their rules at the convention, so if Sanders is going to win the abolition of superdelegates, it wouldn’t happen until later. But Republican delegates on the rules committee are set to meet the week before the convention to decide how everything should go down, and party leaders are reportedly trying to ensure that the anti-Trump delegates can’t use the rules to stage a revolt in Cleveland. Technically, the 112-member panel doesn’t have to rely on the rules used at past conventions; the party could theoretically allow pledged delegates to vote for someone other than Trump during the roll call. But NBC News reported in late June that the rules committee was considering an amendment that would simply adopt the rules for the 2012 convention, essentially blocking any further changes and ensuring Trump’s nomination. The convention will also adopt rules for the party going forward, although those are often amended at quarterly RNC meetings after the convention.

For Clinton and Trump, the goal is to keep all those squabbles about the platform and rules—the nuts and bolts of a political party—in the background, and the spotlight on themselves. Conventions in the modern era are less about the parties than the candidates, and this is their showcase. For two polarizing nominees disliked by a majority of the public, these eight days in July may be their last, best chance to get millions of anxious, dissatisfied Americans to embrace them, and their visions for the future.

The Evolution of Party Conventions

Summer 2016

Earlier this year, it seemed like this summer might be the most exciting political-convention season in decades. Reality-television celebrity and real-estate magnate Donald Trump was up against the strongest Republican bench in a generation, and for several months during the primary race, everyone was talking about the possibility of an open GOP convention.

If no candidate had secured 1,237 delegates (a majority of the 2,472 total delegates) by the end of the primary season, the Cleveland convention in July would have marked the first time in 40 years that the choice of GOP nominee was not more or less decided by the start of the convention. It would have meant that the delegates would have determined the outcome of the contest at the convention itself. Instead of the typical multi-day political advertisement, participants would have been forced to hash through the convention rules and bylaws to find their standard-bearer for the fall.

The 2016 pundits were breathless in their excitement. As political consultant and commentator Rick Wilson put it, the media world has long viewed the prospect of an open convention as the equivalent of “a naked leprechaun riding on a unicorn.” The late great political operative, columnist, and word maven William Safire foresaw the potential for convention-derived media glee long ago. In his indispensable Safire’s Political Dictionary, he noted that, in recent generations, a contested convention “has been a vain dream of the media.” Safire also wisely distinguished between an open convention and a brokered convention — another term that has been much discussed this year — which he described as “dominated by factional party leaders. “

Whatever has gone on in the 2016 Republican contest, it seems clear that “factional party leaders” are not calling the shots, and that fact alone means the traditional understanding of the political convention will change in the coming years. While the 2016 Republican primaries turned out to be less close than they seemed for a time, this year may still presage a new era in conventions, one marked by bitter intra-party divides, instantaneous communications capabilities, and technology-driven efforts by individuals and party factions to circumvent the existing party machinery to reach the people directly.

It is too soon to know how this will play out in future election cycles. But in the past, conventions were shaped and influenced by a combination of changing party needs and evolving technological capabilities. It is reasonable to surmise that future technological and ideological developments will reshape the American invention that is the party convention in ways as yet unforeseen. For this reason, and in preparation for this summer’s Democratic and Republican quadrennial shindigs, it is worth exploring how conventions came to be, what they meant for most of our history, why recent conventions have all been predetermined affairs, and what it would mean if future conventions were not quite so predictable.

SHOUTING BY TELEGRAPH

The first national party convention was held in Baltimore in September of 1831, on behalf of the long-departed Anti-Mason Party. Its usefulness quickly became so obvious that both the Democrats and the National Republicans adopted the idea and held their own conventions, also in Baltimore, in preparation for the 1832 presidential election. The Democrats even used the same saloon that the Anti-Masons had used for their get-together.

Conventions had become necessary because parties were becoming more robust and active, and party leaders increasingly needed to get together to plan and coordinate. In the years before conventions, candidates emerged out of the caucus system, under which a small group of individuals picked party candidates — an exceedingly undemocratic process. This didn’t bother the founders, who had little interest in — and indeed a healthy fear of — pure, Athenian-style democracy, but it was also unsustainable in the long run. The lack of a formal process was all well and good when the entire nation could agree on the candidacy of George Washington, but it became ever more difficult as a divided populace struggled over difficult issues such as trade alliances, European revolutions, wars, and slavery.

The flaws of the caucus system were evident in 1820, for example, when the divided Federalists did not even field a candidate at all, allowing the incumbent James Monroe to run unopposed. Monroe put a good spin on the circumstances, and his presidency is remembered as the apex of the Era of Good Feelings, in part because of the uncontested election in which he stood for re-election. In 1824, though, the caucus system failed again, selecting Treasury Secretary William Crawford as the presidential candidate, despite the fact that more worthy and popular candidates such as John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, and Andrew Jackson also sought the presidency. Crawford, however, was the only one who pursued the support of the caucus, which illuminated even more starkly the ineffectiveness of the caucus system.

Conventions, while an improvement over the caucus system, were not a panacea for political or social challenges. Neither the Anti-Masons nor the National Republicans won the 1832 election, and both parties are long gone from the political scene. As for the Democrats, the election winner and the sole remaining party from that cycle, they did not even formally nominate their candidate, incumbent president Andrew Jackson. The convention, which outgrew its original venue and had to move to a church to accommodate its 334 delegates, merely “concurred” with the state nominations Jackson had already received. As Alabama’s William King summarized matters in his circuitous way, “with regard to the candidate to be supported for the Presidency, there was no diversity of sentiment among the members of the Convention — all concurring in the propriety and importance of the reelection of our present worthy and venerable Chief magistrate, Andrew Jackson. “

With the convention precedent established, parties now had a mechanism for selecting candidates with the input of party members from across the growing country. Such a mechanism was necessary not only because of the increasing contentiousness and complexity of the issues facing the young nation, but also because of the difficulty party leaders had in communicating with one another. Before the spread of rail or the telegraph, party bosses needed one specific time and place where they could get together and unify behind a general election standard-bearer. In addition, beginning in 1840, parties needed to agree on platforms, or sets of issues on which a party would run, and, hopefully, govern. But having a mechanism did not mean that things would be smooth or easy.

In this period, before the existence of our current system of primaries selecting bound delegates, conventions were often raucous and uncertain affairs in which the eventual winners were far from predetermined. In fact, it wouldn’t take long for the first “surprise” winner to emerge from a national political convention. Again in Baltimore, this time in 1844, the year in which the first telegraph message was sent, James Polk won the Democratic nomination on the ninth ballot. Polk’s selection was a shock, as former president Martin Van Buren was the favorite going in, and indeed was the leader after the first ballot. Yet Van Buren, a wizened political machine operator, was nonetheless done in by the controversial but eventually agreed upon requirement that the nominee receive two-thirds of the delegates. With Van Buren unable to overcome the two-thirds hurdle, former House speaker and Tennessee governor Polk eventually emerged as the winner.

A Polk supporter telegraphed the new nominee the reaction to the news that he had secured the prize on the ninth ballot: “The Convn. Is shouting. The people in the streets are shouting. The news went to Washington and back by Telegraph whilst the votes were counting and the Congress is shouting. There is one general Shout throughout the whole land, and I can’t write any more for Shouting. ..I am yours shouting.”

The era’s newest technology played a role in the proceedings themselves as well. The convention overwhelmingly chose New York senator Silas Wright to be Polk’s vice presidential nominee. But Wright, a friend of the defeated Van Buren, rejected the call of the delegates, and notified the convention of his decision via the newly available telegraph technology. The convention refused to believe his rejections — even though he sent four telegraphic messages to that effect — and Wright had to dispatch messengers by wagon from New York to Baltimore to convey the news by letter. With Wright out of the picture, Pennsylvania senator George Dallas was selected by the delegates and ended up serving as the nation’s 11th vice president when Polk won that fall. And the 1844 convention was not just shaped by the telegraph; it was also the first convention in which the technology was used to report the final result.

The telegraph would be the predominant method for convention-related communication for several decades. It was never as reliable or cheap as the telephone would be, but it did allow for the immediate transmission of news. Abraham Lincoln famously stayed in touch with developments from the 1860 GOP convention by telegraph, using the device to send the instruction to his aides that they should “make no contracts that will bind me.” He also learned via telegraph that he had won the nomination, on the third ballot, even though he was not the leading candidate going into the Chicago gathering.

When the news came in, Lincoln had actually left the Springfield telegraph office where he was following the proceedings during the voting to visit a shop across the square. As he was running his errand, he heard a loud noise coming from the direction of the office. A boy ran toward him, bearing the good news: “Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Lincoln, you are nominated.” Lincoln accepted the congratulations and huzzahs of the crowd for a few moments, but then made his exit thusly: “I am glad to receive your congratulations, and as there is a little woman down on Eighth Street who will be glad to hear the news, you must excuse me until I inform her. “

Lincoln’s victory in the third vote was far from the largest number of ballots ever cast in a GOP convention. That distinction goes to another Chicago convention, the 1880 GOP affair. In addition to being the first convention ever to be photographed — a grainy shot of the delegates on the convention floor still exists — it is still the only GOP convention to have more than 10 ballots. A lot more, as it turns out. James Garfield, the eventual winner and member of the reform contingent of the GOP, had refused to put his name forward for nomination, making him a “draft” candidate. Although former president Ulysses Grant was the leader in the early balloting, Garfield sensed that things were moving in his direction, writing to his wife after the first day of the convention that “the signs have multiplied that the Convention is strongly turning its attention to me.” Garfield ended up winning on the 36th ballot.

The vice presidency was offered to New York’s Chester Arthur, a member of the party’s regular faction. Party boss Roscoe Conkling, fearing a fall defeat, advised Arthur, “[Y]ou should drop it as you would a red hot shoe from the forge.” Arthur, however, wisely ignored his advice, saying, “The office of the Vice-President is a greater honor than I ever dreamed of attaining.” Tragically, Garfield was assassinated shortly after taking office, which elevated Arthur to the presidency.

The year 1912 would feature two contested conventions, and new technologies would continue to alter how politicians communicated. The Republican convention took place first, at the Chicago Coliseum. Former president Theodore Roosevelt entered with more primary victories and more delegates. He was running, however, against sitting president William Howard Taft. (See William Schambra’s piece on this battle, “The Saviors of the Constitution,” in the Winter 2012 issue of National Affairs.) Taft and his vice president, James Sherman, had used the relatively new technology of the telephone to strategize about how they would defeat Roosevelt at the convention.

Roosevelt used the phone extensively as well, receiving updates on what was happening at the convention both from his home in Oyster Bay and from offices in New York City, before taking the unusual step in those days of going to Chicago to continue to follow the action. It was to no avail, however. Though convention chairman Elihu Root had served as Roosevelt’s secretary of war, he nevertheless presided over a decision that the rules of the convention would disallow the bulk of the Roosevelt delegates. Absent his delegates, Roosevelt lost on the first ballot and would go on to run an unsuccessful third-party “Bull Moose” candidacy that ended up dragging down Taft in the fall election as well.

The beneficiary of the GOP disunity was New Jersey governor Woodrow Wilson. He closely followed the developments in Chicago by phone from his cottage in Sea Girt, New Jersey. He and his wife, Edith, were supposed to be relaxing while there, but it was to no avail, as Wilson ally William McAdoo kept the governor constantly updated by phone. Wilson was even more actively involved once the Democratic convention began a few days later in Baltimore. Here, too, the eventual winner did not enter with the most delegates. Speaker of the House Champ Clark, a Missouri Democrat, not only started with the most delegates but managed to secure the majority of delegates on the 10th ballot. Wilson was informed of this development over the phone by campaign manager William McCombs, who foolishly advised him to release his delegates at that point. At that time, a candidate needed two-thirds of the vote for the nomination, but every Democrat since 1844 who had secured a majority eventually won the nomination. Wilson remarked unhappily, “so you think it is hopeless,” and then acceded to the request.

When McAdoo heard what had happened, he accused McCombs of undercutting Wilson, saying, “You have betrayed the Governor. You have sold him out!” McAdoo then made a call of his own to Sea Girt, explaining to Wilson that Clark had won a majority, but that did not mean that the House speaker had won the nomination. Wilson then countermanded the order over the phone, and eventually went on to win the nomination on the 46th ballot.

The technology of the time did not allow the convention to be broadcast live, but Wilson’s speech accepting the nomination was captured on both film and phonograph. As these incidents show, the expanded use of the telephone allowed candidates to engage in more active management of convention efforts than did telegraph messages such as Lincoln’s pithy “Make no contracts that will bind me.”

CONVENTIONS IN THE AGE OF MASS COMMUNICATION

A major change in the use of technology at conventions, and therefore in the role of conventions themselves, took place in 1924. This would be the first year in which conventions would be covered live over the radio; approximately 20 stations broadcast the Cleveland Republican convention, mostly from the Northeast. This development accelerated a change in the fundamental purpose of conventions, from internal meetings designed to determine who would be the party standard-bearer to advertising opportunities for the party and its designee. It may not have been fully apparent at the time, but the ability of conventions to project outward, and with it the ability of the American people to follow the ups and downs of conventions in a real-time, unfiltered way, was the most important factor in conventions becoming the foregone-conclusion spectacles that they have for the most part been since 1980.

One of the first politicians to recognize the opportunity that radio brought with it was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In many ways he was a politician designed for radio. Wheelchair bound, radio let Roosevelt communicate without anyone seeing that he could not walk or stand on his own. More important, he had a great radio voice, perhaps the best radio voice in American politics in his era — better even than Thomas Dewey, a trained opera singer.

Roosevelt also understood how to use radio, which became apparent in that 1924 Madison Square Garden get-together. Radio highlighted the differences between old-style podium speakers, men like William Jennings Bryan and Robert La Follette, and those who understood the new medium. In one instructive example, Bryan — who knew how to spellbind a live audience — walked around the stage to connect with the crowd. But in doing so, the microphones failed to pick up his voice, and many of his words were therefore not broadcast over the radio. Roosevelt, in contrast, was a stationary speaker, in part because of his physical limitations, but also because he understood that he was speaking not just to the crowd in the hall but also to those in the radio audience.

With the home audience in mind, Roosevelt gave a well-received speech putting forth New York governor Al Smith’s name for the nomination. This speech became famous for introducing the phrase “happy warrior” into the American political lexicon, a phrase that almost failed to make the speech’s final cut. It dates back to an 1807 William Wordsworth poem: “Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he/That every man in arms should wish to be?” Today, it means a politician eager for the fray, and it has been applied in recent years to politicians as diverse as Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and John Edwards. Roosevelt, however, was the first to use it in the political context, albeit somewhat reluctantly. New York lawyer Joseph Proskauer, Smith’s campaign manager and the author of Roosevelt’s draft address, inserted the phrase. Roosevelt, however, balked at using the “happy warrior” construction, claiming, “You can’t give poetry to a political convention.” Roosevelt and Proskauer fought over the draft for hours, but Roosevelt eventually gave in, although not in a “happy warrior” fashion.

The speech struck a chord. Arthur Van Rensselaer heard the speech over the radio and wrote to Roosevelt, “You proved yourself to be quite the hero of the convention.” Later, after comments like these and others made clear that the speech was a hit, Roosevelt claimed it was his draft, and that he “stuck in” a recommended line of poetry from Proskauer. The “happy warrior” phrase lived on in part because of radio’s reach, and its ability to make convention rhetoric part of the national vocabulary.

Radio could elevate Roosevelt, but it could not resolve the problem of a divided Democratic Party. The convention deadlocked for 103 ballots between Smith — who would eventually become the first Catholic presidential nominee in 1928 — and William McAdoo, who had ably advised Wilson back in 1912. Unfortunately, McAdoo had the support of the anti-Catholic Ku Klux Klan, an endorsement he did not repudiate. With little room for compromise, the balloting went on for 16 days, until the delegates eventually backed compromise candidate John W. Davis, a former congressman from West Virginia and U.S. solicitor general. Davis actually had some understanding of the importance of radio. He argued that “the radio will completely change campaign methods…I believe it will make the long speech impossible or inadvisable, and that the short speech will be the vogue. Otherwise your audience might tune out on you without your knowing it. It’s just a matter of turning a knob.” His prescient insights did not help him in the fall campaign, though, as he lost badly to Calvin Coolidge.

Radio would be even more important in the less contentious convention of 1928, which nominated Smith without all of the drama of 1924. At the 1928 event, Roosevelt gave an even better speech, and this time the convention was broadcast from coast to coast. This constituted the third and last time Roosevelt would put forth Smith’s name for the Democratic nomination, and the first time he would be successful in doing so. FDR tailored the nominating speech to cater to the radio audience, rather than just those listening in the convention hall. With this in mind, Roosevelt’s speech was interspersed with more staccato pauses than one would typically employ in a recitation to the true believers. Roosevelt told the attendees that Smith had “that quality of soul which makes a man loved…a strong help to all those in sorrow or in trouble…the quality of sympathetic understanding of the human heart.” The speech was a hit; Time called FDR’s remarks “the most intelligently well-bred speech of either of the big conventions. ” Roosevelt was also doing something different from other politicians at the time. As Time put it, “Compared to the common run of nominating effusions, Mr. Roosevelt’s speech was as homo sapiens to the gibbering banderlog.” At the next convention, in 1932, he and Smith would be rivals for the top slot, and Roosevelt would emerge victorious.

It was only 12 years later that another new technology would again reshape the political convention. The 1940 Republican convention in Philadelphia was the first to be broadcast on television. Of course, very few Americans actually owned televisions at the time, and the broadcast images mostly benefited an overflow crowd in a nearby venue. Still, the images were shown in both New York City and Philadelphia, and reached as far as Lake Placid, New York, 375 miles away.

The TV experiment notwithstanding, the 1940 GOP convention is better remembered for being the last time a true dark horse, or surprise candidate, emerged with the nomination. In addition to being a political novice, businessman Wendell Willkie had the disadvantage of having been, until not long before he ran, a Democrat. In fact, at the convention, former Indiana senator James Watson even confronted Willkie, telling him somewhat rudely, “I don’t mind the Church converting a whore, but I don’t like her to lead the choir the first night.”

Watson’s piquancy was only a taste of the rough and tumble nature of the raucous affair, which included loud chants of “We Want Willkie,” fistfights on the convention floor, and genuine concerns about delegate security. The public-safety director was a man named James “Shooey” Malone, a well-known Philadelphia detective who oversaw 500 police officers involved in the security effort. Malone directed his officers to take out “suspicious-looking persons” from the convention hall. Willkie won on the sixth ballot, at one o’clock in the morning, but not before there were melees between Willkie and anti-Willkie forces over signs, struggles that had to be broken up by police. For his part, Willkie did have an excellent radio voice, but it was not enough to stop FDR’s quest for a third term.

By 1952, television was advanced enough that it actually made a difference in the outcome. That year’s GOP convention was the first to get “gavel to gavel” TV coverage, with 104 stations in 68 cities showing 70 hours of convention programming to around 70 million people. Going in, Dwight Eisenhower, who like Ulysses Grant — and Donald Trump — had never before held elective office, trailed in delegates behind Ohio senator Robert Taft. Taft, the son of former president William Howard Taft, had 500 of the 604 delegates required at the time for the nomination as the convention began. Eisenhower and his team used the power of TV in their effort to come back from their deep delegate hole. (Ike was acutely aware of the power of television, and as president would maneuver to have the Army-McCarthy hearing broadcast on TV, as he knew Senator Joe McCarthy would fail to enchant given prolonged exposure. See my “Reclaiming the Congressional Hearing” in the Fall 2015 issue of National Affairs.)

The Eisenhower team’s strategy was simple: They used the media, especially the television cameras, to project to the observing public that Taft forces, who controlled the National Committee overseeing the process, were violating American principles of fair play. Taft’s forces did not want internal party deliberations on questions such as rules and delegate eligibility on display for the public on television. The Ike forces objected, and their push for transparency bolstered the perception that Eisenhower’s people were the ones who were playing fairly. For their part, the Taft team grumbled, with one Taft man complaining, “Next thing we know they’ll bring a printing press into the committee room.”

The key issue on which the Ike forces made their stand had to do with a question of the acceptance of Taft delegates in Texas. Washington governor Arthur Langlie gave a speech arguing against the acceptance of any delegates who were objected to by more than one-third of the national committee. Langlie argued that acceptance of the disputed delegates violated “fair play.” Like FDR in 1928, Langlie’s speech was specifically targeted not to the convention attendees but to the larger outside audience, now watching via TV rather than just listening on the radio. Langlie’s argument was successful, and the ensuing adoption of what was called the “Fair Play amendment” led to the seating of the Eisenhower delegates and to Ike’s nomination on the first official ballot. The Taft forces learned to their chagrin that in the television age one could never be successful if seen as being against fair play.

The successful use of television would have both short- and long-term effects on American politics. In the immediate term, the Democrats made the decision to accommodate TV cameras for gavel-to-gavel viewing of their own convention after seeing the GOP convention televised. Every subsequent convention would be covered on TV, and the parties would have to keep that visibility in mind in their planning. But the coverage of the conventions would also lead to greater interest by the American populace in the goings on at conventions, as viewership grew while TV ownership increased from 34% of households in 1952 to 72% in 1956.

One of those families who got a TV between the first and second Eisenhower elections was that of future president Bill Clinton. In his autobiography, Clinton recalled being “transfixed” by watching both parties’ conventions in 1956. He also remembered being flummoxed by Adlai Stevenson’s putatively modest attempts to refuse the Democratic nomination that year. As Clinton recalled, “even then I couldn’t understand why anyone wouldn’t want the chance to be president.”

OVER-EXPOSURE

Once the 1960s came around, and TV penetration went above 90%, calculations about how to handle television had changed. Ugly scenes like fistfights on the convention floor would not do, and politicians began to recognize the need for smoother, more appealing conventions. How to accomplish this, however, was not obvious. The 1964 GOP convention and the 1968 Democratic convention both broadcast unhelpful images to the nation: In 1964, the images came from inside the hall; in Chicago in 1968, the ugliness was broadcast mainly from the streets.

In the 1964 convention, conservative Arizona senator Barry Goldwater easily won the nomination on the first ballot. Unfortunately for the Republicans, that apparent unity was not the message or the image that emerged from the convention. All summer long, there had been discussions among party moderates about how to stop Goldwater, prompting former vice president Richard Nixon to remark to his aide Pat Buchanan, “Buchanan, if you ever hear of a group getting together to stop X, be sure to put your money on X.” As Nixon, who ended up backing Goldwater, foresaw, the moderates’ efforts were not going well. At one point, Stuart Spencer, an aide to Nelson Rockefeller, said to his boss, “Governor, I think it’s time to call in the Eastern establishment. ” Rockefeller’s reply was telling: “You’re looking at it, buddy. I’m all that’s left!”

In San Francisco, the Goldwater forces were well aware that party moderates were trying to stop their man, and they were determined not to let it happen. In addition to their anger at the Rockefeller wing of the party, there was also considerable dislike for the media, which was correctly seen as being strongly anti-Goldwater. Veteran newsman David Brinkley told his son Alan not to display his media credentials inside the Cow Palace for fear that journalists might be harmed by the unruly crowd.

When Rockefeller spoke to the convention floor and gave his call against “extremism,” he was disdainful, saying to the shouting delegates, “This is still a free country, ladies and gentlemen.” When baseball great — and faithful Republican — Jackie Robinson cheered on Rockefeller, saying, “That’s right, Rocky. Hit ’em where they live,” one Goldwater supporter made a threatening move toward Robinson. The man’s wife wisely stopped her husband, prompting Robinson to shout, “Turn him loose, lady, turn him loose!” Later, Robinson would say about the ugliness he saw on the convention floor, “I now believe I know how it felt to be a Jew in Hitler’s Germany.”

Rockefeller’s argument against “extremism” led to Goldwater’s making the most famous statement of the convention, and perhaps of the entire campaign: “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And…moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!” While the crowd loved the comment, former president Eisenhower — still a power in the party — was not so sure. He asked Goldwater to explain the comment and how it could ever be good politics to back extremism. Goldwater initially struggled with a response, but eventually explained that he meant that Ike himself had been an extremist in the cause of freedom during the D-Day invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe. Ike liked this answer, saying, “By golly, that makes real sense,” and he ultimately stuck with Goldwater. For his part, Goldwater was relieved to keep Eisenhower on board and refrained from using the phrase going forward. It didn’t help with the broader electorate, though. Unhappy with what they saw at the convention, and continually reminded by the media of Goldwater’s soi-disant extremism, the American public overwhelmingly voted for Lyndon Johnson that fall.

Johnson, however, did not have an easy time of things following his big victory. Rocked by growing casualties in Vietnam and urban riots every summer during his presidency, LBJ decided not to run for re-election, setting off an unexpected primary battle. Senator Eugene McCarthy had bravely challenged LBJ from the start, and Senator Robert Kennedy jumped into the fray once Johnson performed poorly in the New Hampshire primary. Vice President Hubert Humphrey entered the convention as the leader when Johnson finally withdrew, and he would win relatively easily on the first ballot. That is not, however, what most people remember about the 1968 Democratic convention. Outside the convention hall, 10,000 protesters battled up to 24,000 Chicago police, National Guardsmen, and FBI agents for five days in front of the television cameras. As the Chicago cops wielded their nightsticks, arresting 589 protesters and injuring 100, the protesters chanted, “The whole world is watching.” They were right.

The ugliness spilled into the main hall as well. George McGovern ally Abraham Ribicoff, in nominating his man, declared that “[w]ith George McGovern as President of the United States we wouldn’t have Gestapo tactics in the streets of Chicago.” This comment did not sit well with Chicago mayor Richard Daley, who erupted at Ribicoff and shouted a curse word beginning with “f.” Daley allies have long insisted that the word the mayor used was “faker.” In any case, the Democrats lost a close election that fall, and the images of the battles in Chicago did not help them in November.

Following 1968, we have continued to see indelible moments via TV at the political conventions, even if the outcomes were in almost every case predetermined. Rule changes in both parties have made competing in state primaries and caucuses and securing the necessary majority of delegates going into conventions the new way to run and win. Both parties have seen that it is in their interests not to have ugly floor fights at the conventions, having recognized the opportunity televised conventions offer to make their cases to the American people in the best possible light. If a candidate could secure a majority of delegates before the convention and “clinch” the nomination, he would enter the convention as the presumptive nominee, and his forces would run all aspects of the convention, including the staging, speaker selection, and platform committee. The idea is to have as smooth and as confrontation-free a convention as possible. And largely they succeed, for good or for ill. As Jack Shafer put it in Politico, “The whole show is for the TV cameras, and even then it’s not much of a show. It’s like a striptease in which none of the dancers shows any skin or a professional wrestling match that lasts four days. “

Despite all the efforts to maintain tight control over the conventions going in, it is the spontaneous moments that reflect badly on the parties that tend to be remembered. In 1972, George McGovern could not manage to give his acceptance speech until 3 a.m., which Michael Barone jokingly called “prime time in Hawaii.” In 1980, incumbent president Jimmy Carter defeated Ted Kennedy, who gave his great “dream shall never die” speech and then refused to clasp hands in unity with Carter on the convention stage. In 1992, Pat Buchanan gave a speech warning of a culture war, which Molly Ivins mocked as having been “better in the original German.” And in 2012, Hollywood actor Clint Eastwood bizarrely interrogated an empty chair representing the leadership vacuum of Barack Obama, prompting Mitt Romney’s chief strategist, Stuart Stevens, to leave the room and throw up.

THE FUTURE OF CONVENTIONS

Despite these missteps, conventions today remain largely party advertising opportunities rather than fora for real decision-making. This is a function of the combination of forces that have shaped political conventions since their earliest origins: the rules determining the nomination process, the level of division within the party, and the technologies governing political discourse at the time.

Rules were once enormously consequential in determining the outcome of a convention. Champ Clark, for instance, could not win with his simple majority in 1912; instead, Wilson finally won the required two-thirds vote on the 46th ballot. That same year, Elihu Root could disallow the Roosevelt delegates at the GOP convention, allowing Taft to win despite Roosevelt’s delegate lead going in. Intractable disagreements within the parties, such as Catholics v. anti-Catholics in 1924, or reformers v. the old guard in 1880, led to long and hard-to-resolve multi-ballot contests with little room for compromise among warring factions. And technology has shaped what the convention itself could do since its earliest incarnation as a relatively simple meeting to enable communication among far-flung, incommunicado delegates and party bosses. Once politicians realized they could use conventions to advertise for their parties, they sought more control over the messaging and the convention itself; any misstep posed large risks in terms of the image the party and candidate presented to the listening or watching public.

The same forces are at work going into the 2016 conventions. Much has been made this year about delegate counts throughout the primaries, especially on the Republican side, as an open convention looked possible. And, had the score been a bit closer, every convention rule determination would have had the potential to make or break one or more of the candidates. While it does not look likely that either party will have an open or contested convention this year, both sides are dealing with bitter intra-party division and a new media environment.

Both the GOP and the Democrats have seen some brutal public squabbling between the so-called “establishment” candidates and the “outsiders” this year. Going into Cleveland this summer, Republicans in particular face the challenge of a highly divisive, unconventional candidate whose very appeal seems to rest on his unscripted appearances and unpredictability. The power of the party apparatus has been significantly diminished, especially as the presumptive Republican nominee won primaries with a message of disdain for traditional politics.

Technology has played a huge role in this shift, as candidates — and everyone else — can use online fora to gain immediate access to millions of readers and viewers, drastically reducing the power of the party to influence, let alone control, public debate. Instead, we now see in Donald Trump a candidate whose media strategy is largely predicated on his personal Twitter pronouncements, as well as frequent appearances on big-market TV shows — a stark break from the careful messaging candidates have used in the past.

Though it won’t be a contested convention, Cleveland will likely prove intense and surprising. Without the ability to predict or control the message and feel of the convention, and with bitter divisions very much unresolved within the party, the GOP may well host a convention that does not fit the mold of the days-long political ads we’ve seen in recent years. And while both parties may have dodged the contested-convention bullet this year, the narrowness of the escape suggests that we could potentially be entering another new era in the long and storied history of American presidential nominating conventions.

Republican National Convention: The schedule for 2020 | US Elections 2020 News

Days after Democrats nominated Joe Biden at an all-digital convention like no other in US history, Republicans will be looking to energise their own base – and bid for much-sought-after undecided voters – as they hold their own part digital, part in-person convention to officially nominate President Donald Trump as their 2020 candidate.

The Republican National Convention, like its Democratic counterpart, is held each presidential election cycle and is where the party finalises and presents its policy platforms going into the final stretch of the campaign. During the event, Republican delegates from across the country also pledge their votes for potential candidates based on the outcome of state primary elections.

This year, no more than 336 delegates – the 2016 convention had more than 2,400 – will gather in-person in Charlotte, North Carolina, to conduct the roll call vote and formally nominate Trump, who faced little opposition in the primary season.

The unorthodox convention is expected to be a test for the Republican party.

Initially scheduled to be a traditional in-person gathering in Charlotte, in June the party moved most of the convention to Jacksonville, Florida after clashing with North Carolina’s governor over coronavirus restrictions.

Then in late July, Trump cancelled the Jacksonville portion of the convention completely as infections in the state rose. The party then pivoted towards a more digital approach.

Democrats, in contrast, had been repurposing their convention to be fully digital since June.

The four-day convention, running from August 24 to 27, will centre around an overarching theme of “Honoring the Great American Story” and will feature everyday Americans who will testify that the president has positively affected their lives, according to the campaign. Events will be live streamed during the day, with the main programming taking place between 8:30pm and 11pm (00:30 GMT and 03:00 GMT) each night.

Vice President Mike Pence, who will also accept the party’s nomination, said on Friday the convention would focus on the economy and law and order, while its speakers will present the Democratic party as being taken over by “the radical left”.

Trump – known to be loath to prerecord speeches – is also expected to feature prominently during each day of the event before making his acceptance speech, likely from the South Lawn of the White House, on the final day.

Here is the schedule for the upcoming convention:

Monday, August 24

Theme

“Land of Promise”

Speakers

A maximum of 336 delegates will meet in the morning from 9am to 1pm (13:00 – 17:00 GMT) before conducting a nighttime roll call in which Trump and Pence will officially be nominated.

Senator Tim Scott

House Republican Whip Steve Scalise

Representative Matt Gaetz

Representative Jim Jordan

Former Ambassador to United Nations Nikki Haley

Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel

Georgia State Representative Vernon Jones

Amy Johnson Ford

Kimberly Guilfoyle

Natalie Harp

Charlie Kirk

Kim Klacik

Mark and Patricia McCloskey, St Louis couple who brandished guns at Black Lives Matter protesters

Congressional candidate Sean Parnell

Andrew Pollack, whose daughter Meadow was killed in the 2018 Parkland, Florida, school shooting

Donald Trump Jr

Tanya Weinreis, Montana coffee shop owner whose business and employee’s livelihoods were saved by the federal virus relief Paycheck Protection Program

From California to Florida, from Arizona to Ohio, Republicans will be watching the historic re-nomination of President Trump and Vice President Pence! Don’t forget to tune in on Monday, August 24th at 9am EST. #FourMoreYears #RNC2020 #4days pic.twitter.com/p1kczuYaKO

— #RNC2020 GOP Convention (@GOPconvention) August 20, 2020

Tuesday, August 25

Theme

“Land of Opportunity”

Speakers

First Lady Melania Trump

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo

Senator Rand Paul

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds

Florida Lieutenant Governor Jeanette Nunez

Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron

Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi

Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood employee who is now an anti-abortion activist.

Jason Joyce

Myron Lizer

Mary Ann Mendoza

Megan Pauley

Cris Peterson

John Peterson

Nicholas Sandmann, Kentucky Catholic high school student who successfully sued a media organisation for not providing context to a confrontation with a Native American activist at Right to Life march that went viral

Eric Trump

Tiffany Trump

First Lady Melania Trump is set to speak on the first night of the Republican convention [File: Carolyn Kaster/AP Photo]

Wednesday, August 26

Theme

“Land of Heroes”

Speakers

Vice President Mike Pence

Second Lady Karen Pence

Senator Marsha Blackburn

Senator Joni Ernst

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem

Representative Dan Crenshaw

Representative Elise Stefanik

Representative Lee Zeldin

Former Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway

Vice Presidential National Security Advisor Keith Kellogg

Jack Brewer

Sister Dede Byrne

Madison Cawthorn

Scott Dane

Clarence Henderson

Ryan Holets

Michael McHale

Congressional candidate Burgess Owens

Lara Trump

Vice President Mike Pence is set to be nominated as Trump’s running mate [AFP]

Thursday, August 27, 2020

Theme

“Land of Greatness”

Speakers

President Donald Trump

Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell

Senator Tom Cotton

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy

Representative Jeff Van Drew

Ivanka Trump

White House Deputy Assistant Ja’Ron Smith

Police Sergeant Ann Dorn, widow of retired police captain David Dorn who was killed during violent protests in St Louis in June

Debbie Flood

Former mayor of NYC Rudy Giuliani

Franklin Graham

Alice Johnson, a woman whose prison sentence was commuted by Trump

Wade Mayfield

Carl and Marsha Mueller, parents of Kayla Mueller, a humanitarian worker killed by ISIL (also known as ISIS)

Dana White, president of Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC)

Patricia McCloskey and her husband Mark McCloskey, who drew their firearms on protesters in St Louis, are expected to speak at the convention [Reuters]

NATIONAL CONVENTION OF BLACK FREEMEN | Encyclopedia of Cleveland History

The NATIONAL CONVENTION OF BLACK FREEMEN was a 3-day conference that began in Cleveland on 6 Sept. 1848. Presided over by Frederick Douglass, the convention brought together 50-70 free black leaders (see AFRICAN AMERICANS) from the Old Northwest and Canada, including WILLIAM H. DAY of Ohio and Clevelander JOHN MALVIN. Some sessions were held in the courthouse and public sessions were well attended. Black delegates were reportedly treated well by local hotels and other facilities.

The convention passed resolutions favoring business education, equality before the law regardless of color, affiliation with the antislavery cause (see ABOLITIONISM), statistical studies on the status of Negroes, and frequent state and local conventions. Delegates’ backgrounds—mostly self-made men—influenced the debate over issues such as business education and what kinds of work were considered honorable. An attempt to declare all work as honorable was defeated by those who looked down upon menial labor. Another hotly debated issue was the role of women at the convention. Although supposedly all blacks who attended were accepted as members of the convention, the women present were not allowed to participate at first. A compromise was finally reached which held that the general convention invitation of “persons” included women. One historian has argued that despite its initial reluctance, it was the first national convention to recognize that women had a right to participate. The convention debated whether it should endorse Martin Van Buren’s Free-Soil party in the upcoming presidential election. Delegates criticized both the Whigs and the Democrats for having “betrayed the sacred cause of human freedom” with their stands on slavery. Only after much debate did the convention endorse the Free-Soil party.

Bell, Howard. “The National Negro Convention, 1848.” Ohio Historical Quarterly 67 (Oct. 1958): 357-68.

National Nominating Convention: Definition & Purpose

Definition and Purpose

Every four years, the two major political parties, as well as many minor parties, will hold a national nominating convention. The primary purpose of these conventions is to select the party’s nominee for president. At the convention, a body of delegates, voting representatives from each state, will cast votes for a nominee until a winner is selected. Afterwards, the presidential candidate will select a vice presidential candidate to be his/her running mate. The convention is also where the statement of the party’s principles and goals is adopted, which is called a platform. The proposals and goals that make up the platform are called planks. Once the presidential nominee is selected, the candidate will then give an acceptance speech, a practice popularized by President Franklin D. Roosevelt when he accepted his party’s nomination in 1932.

History of Conventions

National nominating conventions have changed since they were first adopted in 1832. In the beginning, the ordinary voter actually had no power to vote for somebody to become the presidential nominee. Instead, power lay with the party bosses, who chose the delegates at the convention. The contest was often settled in meetings of the party bosses, who would discuss possible candidates behind closed doors. These meetings popularized the imagery of ‘smoke filled rooms’ where decisions are made with no public consent. Often a candidate was chosen after promises and deals had been concluded among the bosses. Still, a presidential pick was often hard to settle on, and conventions could vote dozens of times in heated contests before finally arriving at a choice. For example, President Franklin Pierce would receive his party’s nomination only after 49 rounds of voting by the delegates.

Changes in the Conventions

The power of party bosses fell with the use of party primaries in the 1960s. A primary is an electoral contest in which the voters can select the delegates to the convention themselves. By picking delegates pledged to a particular candidate, voters now had the power to choose a nominee themselves. This also meant that the nominee was now more likely to be decided before the convention actually met. Convention reforms would continue after the 1968 riots in Chicago. That year, as the Vietnam War waged, delegates at the Democratic National Convention defeated an anti-war resolution even though most Democratic primary voters had voted for anti-war candidates, causing rioting in the streets. The parties then began to open up their conventions to make them more inclusive of the wishes of the public.

The Present Era

Nominating conventions today hold almost no suspense as to who the nominee will be. The only exception in recent decades was the 1976 Republican Convention, when going into the convention neither President Gerald Ford nor his challenger Ronald Reagan had enough delegates to secure the presidential nomination, though Ford still won on the first ballot. In the present era, conventions are ceremonial affairs designed to ratify a candidate already chosen by the voters. Also, with the wide use of television, conventions are much more toned down than before, without the chaotic proceedings of the past. Instead, parties use conventions as a way to showcase their candidate and promote their message.

Lesson Summary

A political party’s national nominating convention is intended to formally choose the party’s nominee for president and adopt the party’s set of goals and principles, also called its platform. At first, conventions were non-democratic affairs, with nominees picked by party bosses in ‘smoke-filled rooms.’ However, the use of primaries democratized the nomination process by allowing voters to pick delegates themselves. Today, nominating conventions are mostly ceremonial and serve as ways for the parties to showcase their presidential ticket to televised audiences.

90,000 US Democratic National Convention opens Aug 17 – International Panorama

NEW YORK, Aug 17. / TASS /. The Democratic National Convention opens Monday in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Over the course of four days – from 17 to 20 August – delegates to the 49th Congress of the Democratic Party, which has been held regularly since 1832, will consider the draft election program of the party and discuss a wide range of issues, including the situation with the coronavirus pandemic, the state of affairs in the economy, mass unemployment and racial inequality, will vote and confirm Joseph Biden as a candidate for the presidency of the United States, and Kamala Harris as a candidate for vice president in the upcoming November 3 elections.

On this topic

Nationwide coverage of the convention will run from 9:00 pm to 11:00 pm US East Coast time (04:00 to 06:00 Moscow time). The city of Milwaukee with a population of 590 thousand people on the shores of Lake Michigan, the name of which means “a beautiful place” in the language of the Algonquin Indians, was chosen as the venue for the congress. Initially, the congress was planned for July 13-16, but the coronavirus pandemic in the United States forced the organizing committee to make adjustments: the event was postponed to mid-August and almost completely transferred to a virtual format.

The venue has also changed: instead of the originally chosen Fiserv Forum convention center, the smaller Wisconsin Center will become the “virtual hub” of the convention. Those who will ensure the work of the congress – about 300 people – are required to quarantine 72 hours before the start of the congress, use protective equipment and take tests for coronavirus daily. The traditional grand finale – the dropping of a huge number of white, red and blue balloons after the announcement of the candidate’s consent to fight for the White House – will apparently be canceled.It is no coincidence that The New York Times described the preparations for the convention as an “organizational nightmare.”

Virtual exit

The format of television coverage of the convention will also be unusual, since, as noted by The New York Times, news anchors and commentators covering the convention will be based in their studios in New York and Washington. According to the newspaper’s figurative expression, the presenters “will have to act more like dispatchers distributing information flows than like chroniclers who are in the midst of a mass performance.”

On the first day of the convention, delegates will be addressed by former main rival of former President Joseph Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and former first Lady Michelle Obama. According to The New York Times, video footage of Michelle Obama’s speech “should ensure that the first day of the forum ends on a high note.”

On the same day, the party’s electoral platform is expected to be approved.The 79-page draft document includes the sections: Building a Stronger and More Equitable Economy, Committing to Affordable and Quality Universal Health Care, Protecting Populations and Building Confidence for Judicial Reform, Coping with the Impacts of Climate Change and Implementing Equitable Environmental Policies “,” Formation of modern policy in the field of immigration “.

On this topic

A separate chapter – “Restoring American Leadership” – is devoted to the problems of foreign policy.It, in particular, contains a promise “to intensify the activities of American diplomacy in a world where competition is intensifying”, “to ensure that the American Armed Forces have no equal in the world”, “to strengthen alliances with allies” and, together with them, “to provide answers to threats such as misinformation, corruption and economic coercion, “prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

“Democrats believe that the only purpose of our nuclear arsenal is to deter and, if necessary, respond to a nuclear attack.We will work to put this into practice in consultation with our allies and our military experts, the document says. “We will work to maintain a robust deterrent capability while reducing excessive spending on nuclear weapons.”

The Democrats express their intention to strengthen the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, maintain a moratorium on nuclear testing and extend the Treaty on Measures to Further Reduce and Limit Strategic Offensive Arms (START, the unofficial name of START-3 – approx.TASS). “Just as it was during the Cold War, it is in our interest to work with Russia on verifiable restrictions and reductions in our nuclear arsenals,” the document says. over weapons that take into account the emergence of new players on the world stage, such as China, and move the world away from the brink of a nuclear abyss. ”

Democrats, as follows from the draft program, intend to seek a political settlement in Afghanistan, an end to the conflict in Yemen, declare their intention to invest in cybersecurity, space, artificial intelligence and unmanned systems.“Democrats believe that our armed forces are and should remain in the future the most effective in the world,” the document says. “To do this, we must bring our foreign wars to a responsible end, rationally approach our military budget, invest in the development of the armed forces and the latest technology”.

Tandem approval

The presidential nomination ceremony will take place on the second day of the Congress. Since the 77-year-old ex-Vice President of the United States, Joseph Biden, after the withdrawal of the main rival – Senator from Vermont Bernie Sanders on April 8 – was the only candidate, the outcome of the vote is a foregone conclusion.According to the Tne New York Times, Biden has secured the support of 2,671 convention delegates in primary elections and gatherings of party activists, while 1,991 votes are required to win the first round.

Ex-President of the United States Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State John Kerry and Joseph Biden’s wife, Jill Biden, will address the delegates of the congress on this day. In addition, according to the portal Election Central, which posts information on the course of the election campaign, “those who are expecting a new leader in the White House” – activists of the Democratic Party, representatives of small business, leaders of social movements – will speak to the delegates via videoconference.

Former President Barack Obama, Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Democratic Majority Leader in the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi will address the congress on the third day, when a vote will take place to confirm Senator Kamala Harris from California State as Vice President. As noted by CNN, Harris “was the most logical choice for Biden,” as she – the first African-Indian American to be nominated for such a post – will help attract black votes.

According to a poll conducted by Fox News on August 9-12 among 1,000 voters, 49% are ready to support Biden, and 42% are ready to support the current US President Donald Trump. The degree of error in the survey is estimated at 3 percentage points.

On the final day of the convention, Biden will speak remotely to delegates from Wilmington, Delaware, announcing his agreement to run as Democratic presidential candidate. According to the press service of the congress, he “will set out his vision of how to unite America and bring it out of a state of constant chaos and crisis.”

On this topic

According to The New York Times, Biden’s main task is to try to rally the so-called “traditional democrats”, whose interests are expressed by the party leadership and the “progressives” from its left-liberal wing, whose opinions are expressed by Senator from Vermont Bernie Sanders and Member of the House of Representatives Of the United States Congress Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Broadcast of Biden’s speech is expected from 21:00 to 23:00 US East Coast time (from 04:00 Moscow time on August 21).

Position in Russia

Biden has repeatedly spoken out about Russia. This is evidenced by a selection compiled on the eve of the convention by the Belfer Center at Harvard University.

“As president, I will do more than just re-establish our historic ties of partnership, I will spearhead efforts to renew them in today’s world,” Biden pointed out in an article in Foreign Affairs in January this year. “The Kremlin fears a powerful NATO alliance. most effective military alliance in modern history. “

According to him, “the transformation of NATO into an obsolete alliance would meet the greatest aspirations of the Kremlin.” At the same time, he noted that “he would seek the extension of the Treaty on Measures to Further Reduce and Limit Strategic Offensive Arms (START, the unofficial name of START-3 – TASS note), which is an anchor of strategic stability for the United States and Russia and would use this as a basis for new arms control agreements. ”

In an article in The New York Times in February this year, he argued that “Russia and China pose different types of threats to us, although there are a number of other priority issues, such as climate change, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and the need to ensure that to make the global economy work in the interests of the American middle class. “In June of this year, in an interview, he said that “according to the assessment of the American intelligence community, Russian military intelligence offered money to extremist groups in Afghanistan for the killings of American servicemen.”

On this topic

Earlier, The New York Times made such a statement, however, as the spokesman for the Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova noted at a briefing, the United States did not provide confirmation to the Russian Federation even after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov asked about it in a conversation with American Secretary of State Michael Pompeo.

Senator Kamala Harris from California, who was nominated by Biden for vice president, has also repeatedly criticized Russia, calling it “an adversary to the United States.” She believed that the Russian Federation interfered in the electoral processes in the United States, argued that hackers allegedly associated with Moscow spread knowingly false information about it (but did not provide any evidence) and called for “coordinating with partners” in the fight against “cyber attacks from parties of the RF “.

Safety at the exit

Although the number of people directly participating in the convention has been drastically reduced, a safety zone has been created around the Wisconsin Center.Initially, it was planned to spend about $ 50 million to ensure the security of the congress, but then due to the pandemic and the transfer of the congress to a virtual format, the amount was reduced to $ 40 million.

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Milwaukee police spent $ 3.8 million in federal funds in July to prepare for the convention. The protection will be carried out not by 3 thousand police officers, as originally assumed, but about 1,100, and the police have warned in advance that they will not use tear gas against the demonstrators.

On the eve of the convention, the municipality of Milwaukee adopted a special ordinance, according to which the use of drones within the security perimeter is prohibited.

After the congresses – TV debates

When Biden and Trump at the national conventions acquire the status of official presidential candidates, they will have a series of one-on-one meetings during a nationwide televised debate.

The first debates will take place on September 29 in Cleveland, Ohio, the second on October 15 in Miami, Florida, and the third on October 22 in Nashville, Tennessee.Vice President candidates Michael Pence and Kamala Harris will have a televised debate on October 7 at the University of Salt Lake City in Utah. They will begin at 21:00 US East Coast time (04:00 Moscow time) and will last an hour and a half.

Regular presidential elections

The 59th US presidential election will be held on November 3. To win, a presidential candidate must win 270 votes from the 538-member Electoral College. The number of electors in the college is equal to the total number of members of the Senate (100), the House of Representatives (435), in addition, three electors from the metropolitan Federal District of Columbia have been introduced into it.

In keeping with tradition, the inauguration of the new President of the United States will take place at noon on January 20, 2021.

90,000 Democratic National Convention kicks off in USA

The 49th Congress of Democrats begins in the United States on August 17, which for the first time will be almost entirely online. Delegates are to nominate Joe Biden as Donald Trump’s official opponent in the battle for the presidency, endorse Kamala Harris as future vice president, and approve the campaign program less than three months before the congressional elections.This event will mark the start of the final stage of the US election campaign, in which Biden is currently leading.

On August 17, the 49th Congress of the Democratic Party starts, where delegates will have to approve former Vice President Joe Biden as the party’s candidate for head of state.

In addition, the draft of the party’s election program and key issues such as the coronavirus pandemic, the state of affairs in the economy, mass unemployment and the situation around racial inequality are on the agenda.

COVID-19 hit the party’s plans hard, initially the congress was supposed to take place in mid-July, but due to the spread of the coronavirus across the United States, adjustments had to be made – the event was almost completely transferred to a virtual format, and the date of the event was shifted to mid-August.

The four-day Democratic convention will be held in Milwaukee on the shores of Lake Michigan, originally supposed to take place at the Fiserv Forum convention center, but eventually it was decided to meet in the much smaller Wisconsin Center.It will bring together 300 people, they will ensure the work of the congress – personal protective equipment will be required for all those present, and tests for coronavirus will also be conducted daily.

According to The Guardian, the event, which usually gathers thousands of party supporters in one city, will be held remotely. There won’t be any roaring crowd, bespoke party paraphernalia or giant balloons.

What to expect from the congress

On the first day of the congress, eminent representatives of the party are expected to speak.In particular, Biden’s ex-rival, Senator from Vermont Bernie Sanders, Governor from New York State Andrew Cuomo and former First Lady Michelle Obama, should address the delegates.

In parallel with the speeches, the delegates will have to approve the party’s election program, less than three months are left before the congressional elections, and the election campaign is gradually gaining momentum, as it partly overlaps with the presidential one.

The main event of the second day of the event will be Biden’s nomination as a candidate for president from the Democratic Party.There shouldn’t be any problems with this, since all the rivals of the former vice president have already given up the fight, and even spoke in his favor.

Along with Biden’s nomination, a speech by former President Bill Clinton and former US Secretary of State John Kerry is also expected. In addition, informal appeals from representatives of small and medium-sized businesses, party activists and representatives of various social movements should appear.

The third day promises to be the richest for dignitaries, ex-President Barack Obama, Democratic leader in the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi and ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will address the delegates.

In addition to speeches, Senator Kamala Harris of California is expected to be confirmed as a candidate for the post of Vice President. By the way, Biden’s future partner will appeal to delegates exactly 100 years and one day after the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which guaranteed American women the right to vote.

The last day of the congress will be the main one for Biden: apart from his formal confirmation as a candidate, the former vice president must make a speech and agree to represent the Democratic Party in the election of the head of state.According to The New York Times, the candidate will have to tell delegates how he is going to pull the United States “out of a state of constant chaos and crisis.”

However, his main task will be to try to eliminate the split within the party, which has been pursuing it for a long time. Biden must rally the so-called moderate Democrats, on whose side the top of the party, with the left wing – he is informally led by Sanders.

Progressives are not overly supportive of their candidate leaving the race in favor of Biden, as they see a repeat of the 2016 scenario, when Sanders was allegedly squeezed out of the fight for Hillary Clinton.If the former vice president fails to reconcile the internal divisions of the Democrats, he could lose votes on the left, just as he did with Clinton.

The alignment of forces

The Congress of the Democratic Party is a landmark event, upon its completion Biden will enter the final stage of the election campaign, after a while a similar event will be held by the Republicans and the current US President Donald Trump will join him.

While polls are on the side of the former vice president, according to a YouGov study of August 14, Biden outstrips Trump by 10% at the national level – the Democrat is gaining 52% versus 42% for the incumbent.

At the same time, the CNN / SSRS poll of August 15, records slightly different indicators: 50% for Biden and 46% for Trump. However, in general, the gap between candidates has recently ranged from 9% to 11%.

The positions of the incumbent president turned out to be vulnerable due to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, which seriously hit the United States and destroyed one of Trump’s main trump cards – economic success. It is not possible to completely eliminate the virus, the number of cases per day is gradually decreasing, but the increase still goes by tens of thousands of infected per day.This circumstance hinders the start of economic recovery and full-fledged opening of the country, on which the president has been insisting for a long time.

In addition, African American protests all over the country, caused by the death of a black man at the hands of the police, were another serious blow. This theme is actively used by Biden, who is building his campaign with a special bias towards national minorities. What can I say, if he took Harris as his partner – a dark-skinned woman with Jamaican-Indian roots.

Nevertheless, Trump’s rating among the population does not change too much, and he still does not go negative.

It would be a mistake to say that a democrat candidate has every chance of becoming president and the current head of state has already knowingly lost. On the contrary, Trump has always called not to believe various polls, since he won with the same indicators last time.

The candidates will be able to meet for the first debate shortly, they are set for September 29th.Two more rounds of debate will take place on 15 and 22 October. True, it is still impossible to say exactly in what format they will be organized – again, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Postal problems

However, the pandemic can hit not only the election debate, but also the voting itself. Democrats and Republicans are actively debating how to hold elections in a pandemic, since traditional voting can simply be unsafe for Americans.

In this case, the Democratic Party is promoting a mail vote, which Trump is trying to oppose.From the president’s point of view, this type of election can lead to massive fraud, so it should not be held. Trump is leaning towards voting with absentee ballots, which, in turn, does not inspire the credibility of Democrats.

At the same time, there were no particularly negative moments in relation to both methods of remote holding of elections, and the elections by mail were partially held in 2016, when Trump became president, therefore, the head of state’s suspicions are often called unfounded.

According to The Wasington Post, one of the main reasons for the American leader’s dislike of voting by mail may be that the election process itself has been dragging on for a long time. A similar situation arose in 2000, the outcome of the vote – the victory of George W. Bush – was determined by several hundred votes in the state of Florida, but the ballots were studied and rejected for several weeks.

Trump expects to get a clear result as soon as possible instead of controversial data that can easily be challenged in court.

Given that the Democrats built their entire election campaign around the idea of ​​overthrowing the president and even tried to impeach the head of state, they may well refuse to recognize the election result if it is in Trump’s favor.

However, the president’s campaign against the post office is getting fierce enough to open the way for speculation from his opponents. The fact is that Trump is blocking the allocation of additional budgetary funds for the postal service, which can help it to conduct remote voting – the US Postal Service has already warned the states that it does not guarantee the timely delivery of ballots in such conditions.

The actions of the president have already been criticized by prominent representatives of the Democratic Party. Biden himself called the pressure on the post an encroachment on democracy. Trump’s predecessor Obama even accused the head of state of “shooting at the feet of the postal service.” Democrats are trying to resist the president in Congress, but so far they have not been able to achieve significant changes.

90,000 Four days and four years

“Honoring American History” – under such a patriotic slogan in the city of Charlotte (the largest city in North Carolina), the four-day National Convention of the US Republican Party opened on Monday.In this key political event, 74-year-old Donald Trump, who is seeking re-election, and his tandem mate Michael Pence will be formally nominated as Republican candidates for the highest posts in the country and will formally agree to re-run for President and Vice-President of the United States.

Organization and Voting

The venue for the “Great Old Party” rally has been repeatedly postponed, and preparations for the convention were accompanied by obvious organizational turmoil.So, having chosen Charlotte for him in the summer of 2018, due to endless disagreements with the local Democratic governor, and then the outbreak of COVID-19, the Republicans decided to change the location and, after a long search, identified Florida for this purpose. However, when the scale of the spread of coronavirus in this state became known, the party leadership decided to return the congress back to North Carolina, where the epidemiological situation is somewhat better.

As a result, although it will not be held in the originally envisaged format with wide participation of delegates, during the convention the Republicans will focus on the contrast with the similar event of the US Democratic Party, which has barely ended.Recall, it finished last week and was held almost completely virtually due to health safety considerations. According to commentators, it was for this reason that the Democratic convention looked like a video conference in Zoom and failed to interest the majority of voters.

Donkeys, unwilling to repeat the mistakes of others (the emblem of the Republican Party – approx. “RG”), nevertheless gathered 336 “living” delegates in Charlotte – 6 people from each American state. All of them were tested for COVID-19 infection before leaving for North Carolina and upon arrival at the convention site.The rest will vote by remote control and Trump will not have problems with support. NBC estimates that the host of the White House, who will speak at the opening of the convention, can count on the votes of 2,358 delegates, although he only needs 1,276 votes to receive the nomination.

Agenda & Support

“Over the course of four evenings, the 2020 convention for President Trump will honor the history of America and the American people who wrote it, and how President Donald Trump’s agenda” Saddle America Great Again “inspired him to succeed.” , – in this official slogan of the event, which started in Charlotte, the entire electoral platform of the Republicans was reflected like a drop of water.It is based on Trump’s conservative program of 2016, with an emphasis on recovering the American economy, which has been severely undermined by the COVID-19 epidemic.

Trump, announcing his speech at the Republican congress, proposed to “separate” the economies of the United States and China

The 45th head of the American state intends to do this, including through “tough confrontation with China.” “No country has robbed us like China,” Trump said in an interview on Sunday with Fox News and, announcing his speech at the Republican convention, offered to “sever” the US and PRC economies.True, how this is practically possible to do in the current globalized world, the American president did not specify.

The domestic political part of Trump’s agenda will be distinguished by extreme aggressiveness towards his opponents, American observers predict. In particular, the candidate from the US Democratic Party, Joseph Biden, will once again be presented by him as “a puppet of the left-wing radical wing of the Democrats,” writes The Hill.

Despite the emphasis of the Congress in Charlotte on uniting all Republicans around the controversial personality of Donald Trump, there is no need to talk about internal party cohesion in the ranks of “donkeys”.Ex-US President George W. Bush and candidate of the party in the 2012 presidential elections Mitt Romney will miss the congress in Charlotte. Thus, for the first time, a leading representative of the political force will not be personally supported by any of the living ex-presidents of the United States or party members previously nominated for this position. And if Bush and Romney directly refused to support the current owner of the White House, then a number of prominent representatives of the party declared their intention to vote for the Democrats at all.One of these “renegades” was the former US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who announced that he intends to vote for Biden.

As a result, the main public support for Trump at the congress will be provided by his family members – wife Melania, daughters Ivanka and Tiffany, sons Eric and Donald, as well as employees of the current US administration, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is on a trip abroad, the newspaper writes. The Washington Post “. According to the newspaper, the involvement of current federal government officials in promoting Trump’s candidacy raises serious legal questions.In response to this, the campaign headquarters of the Republican president said that all the events of the congress would be paid from the party fund without using the funds of American taxpayers.

Among the announced more than 70 speakers, of course, not without ordinary Americans. To the surprise of observers, among them was the McCloskey couple from St. Louis, who pointed firearms at protesters from the Black Lives Matter movement as they approached private property.The episode in June became one of the symbols of a splitting and rapidly polarizing America, in which heightened racial divisions have brought society to the brink of civil conflict. However, this did not happen without the direct participation of President Trump, who not only supported the McCloskey couple, but also invited the white spouses to the Republican convention.

Odds, Ratings and Debate

The four-day convention in Charlotte will culminate in Donald Trump’s grand speech.It is assumed that the current owner of the White House, who wants to stay there for another four years, will turn to party members from the southern lawn of the presidential residence in Washington.

Meanwhile, according to a poll by The Wall Street Journal, in the remaining time until November 3, when the 59th US presidential election will take place, Trump is 9 percentage points behind his opponent Joseph Biden in ratings. On the other hand, the newspaper admits, by the time of voting, this gap can be significantly reduced and the current American leader is able to strengthen his electoral positions.

Ahead of Trump and Biden is a series of national television debates, traditional for American political culture, which can significantly change the balance of power at the finish of the presidential race. The first verbal duel between the Republican and the Democrat will take place on September 29 in Ohio. Shortly thereafter, their campaign partners Macil Pence and Kamala Harris will also join telesparring – the vice presidential candidates will meet in Utah on October 7.

US Republicans held a convention in violation of the conditions of the pandemic | News from Germany on world events | DW

In Washington on Thursday, August 27, the Republican Party’s national convention ended.About 1,500 guests gathered on the lawn in front of the White House to listen to the speech of US President Donald Trump. The restrictions imposed in connection with the coronavirus pandemic were not respected at this event.

In particular, the chairs were placed too close together, and most of those present were not wearing masks. However, Trump’s campaign headquarters said that in preparing the event, Republicans worked closely with health experts to ensure the safety of participants.

Democrats accuse 74-year-old Trump of failing to protect Americans in the face of a pandemic. Kamala Harris, an associate of 77-year-old Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, said Trump had no plan to fight the coronavirus. According to Harris, the head of the White House “has failed the main, most important part of the work of the President of the United States.”

US presidential elections will be held on November 3

At the Republican convention, Donald Trump officially agreed to re-run for the presidency of the United States.Democrat Joe Biden will be his main rival. The US presidential election will be held on November 3.

See also:

• US presidential elections: from primaries to the White House

  Two options to choose from

  A feature of the US political system is the bipartisan system. Since 1852, representatives of either the Republican or the Democratic Party have become presidents of the country. Representatives of the so-called third parties (the most notable of them are the Constitutional Party, the Libertarian Party and the Green Party), with rare exceptions, fail to intervene in the struggle between Republicans and Democrats.

• US presidential elections: from primaries to the White House

  Primaries

  This time, the struggle for the presidency will again unfold between Democrats and Republicans. But first, both parties must decide on their candidates. For this purpose, a series of preliminary / primary votes are held in individual states, called primaries.

• US presidential elections: from primaries to the White House

  “Donkeys” against “elephants”

  The unofficial symbol of Democrats is the donkey, and the Republicans are the elephant.Not the most obvious choice. This is due to the case and fantasy of cartoonist Thomas Mast. In the 1870s, he chose these images to take turns making fun of both parties. But politicians were not offended and began to use images of these animals as their symbols. Of course, attributing to them radically different qualities than Mast.

• US presidential elections: from primaries to the White House

  The pre-election race continues: two Democrats …

  In the current Democratic primary elections, six people applied for the title of US presidential candidate, but three withdrew their candidacies even before the primaries began. and another, Martin O’Malley, dropped out after the Iowa primary with less than 1 percent of the vote.The struggle for the nomination of the Democratic candidacy continues two – Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

• US presidential elections: from primaries to the White House

  … and two Republicans

  17 people wanted to become a presidential candidate from the Republican Party. Five dropped out before the primary, and ten after failures in various stages of the primaries. Ted Cruz was the last to withdraw his candidacy after the defeat in Indiana on May 4. Now the fight will unfold between Donald Trump and John Keysik.

• US Presidential Election: From Primaries to White House

  Preliminary Results

  The latest GOP primaries will be held June 7 in South Dakota. The Democratic Party will wrap up its primary elections a week later, June 14, in the District of Columbia (Washington). While Hillary Clinton looks like the favorite of the Democrats, and Donald Trump of the Republicans.

• US presidential elections: from primaries to the White House

  Another small formality

  At the end of the primaries, candidates will still have to be approved at party conventions to be held at the end of July 2016.This is usually a formality, as state delegates must vote on the outcome of the primary. But rumor has it that this time the Republican convention could be a stumbling block for Trump, even if he gets the right number of votes in the primaries.

• US Presidential Election: From Primaries to the White House

  First Female US Presidential Candidate?

  There has never been a single female president in the history of the United States. Moreover, the fair sex has never claimed the highest public office in the United States.Therefore, if Hillary Clinton bypasses Bernie Sanders and becomes the Democratic presidential candidate, then that in itself will be a historic event.

• US presidential elections: from primaries to the White House

  45th US president

  The decision on who will become the 45th president of the United States will be decided by the citizens of this country on November 8, 2016.

  Author: Ilya Koval

90,000 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden rallied the party

The Democratic National Convention, held August 17-20 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, online confirmed Joe Biden as a presidential candidate, and Senator Kamala Harris as a candidate for vice presidents.If Biden wins, she will become the first black woman in US history to hold such a high position. Also at the congress, the platform of the Democratic Party was adopted.

In addition to prominent Democrats – Joe Biden’s rival in the primary elections (primaries) of Senator Bernie Sanders, ex-US President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle, media mogul Michael Bloomberg – ordinary Americans, including the brothers of the deceased George Floyd, also spoke at the congress. The death of the latter by police actions on May 25 sparked violent racial protests in the United States, which led to riots in several states.

The main event of the congress was Biden’s pre-election speech. America has experienced “the worst pandemic in more than 100 years and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression,” he said. Biden cited racial issues and climate change as other challenges facing the United States.

Most of Biden’s speech was devoted to criticism of the incumbent President Donald Trump. “Let’s judge the president by facts. 5 million Americans have contracted COVID-19, and more than 170,000 have died.More than 50 million people are faced with the problem of unemployment. The president still does not have a plan, but I have one, ”Biden said. In the event of his victory in the elections, Biden noted, he, as an American leader, will support his allies and clearly explain to the whole world that the time of dictators has passed. “Under the leadership of President Biden, America will not turn a blind eye to the awards that Russia is putting up for the heads of American soldiers. America will not tolerate an insult to the sacred democratic procedure – voting, ”said the Democratic candidate.

The first time Biden tried to run for president was back in 1988, but was defeated. In the 2008 elections, his figure was overshadowed by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, at the beginning of the 2020 race, Biden was at first behind Sanders, known for his left-wing views. As Pavel Koshkin, a researcher at the Institute of the USA and Canada, notes, the struggle between Sanders and Biden led to a split in the party and only the threat of Trump’s re-election rallied the Democrats – Sanders supported Biden. At the same time, the ideological split of the party between the centrists and the left did not completely disappear.

About the split in the Democratic Party on August 21, during a press conference at TASS, Vladimir Garbuzov, director of the Institute for the USA and Canada Studies, also spoke about the split in the Democratic Party, who called Sanders’ campaign a “socialist revolution” of the lower ranks of the party. “This revolution ended with an agreement between the bureaucracy and Sanders, his electorate, and the congress showed it. The Democratic Party has managed to curb the radical left shift, ”he said. In his opinion, the mission of the Democrats now is to defeat Trump by all means.

The platform of the Democratic Party, according to Academician Alexander Dynkin, expressed at this press conference, is “a program of all good versus all bad.” According to him, at the congress they talked about fair taxation, about the creation of new jobs, but the central idea of ​​the Democrats was the reform of healthcare, on which President Obama had been working. He believes that Harris is a rising star for the Democratic Party, which may well qualify for the first post in the state due to Biden’s venerable age.

Expert of the Institute of the USA and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences Pavel Sharikov noted that the election of Harris to the post of vice-president is quite consistent with the policy of the Democrats – supporting women in building political careers and helping minorities. According to him, Harris will play in contrast to Trump and attract the voices of women.

CNN political analyst Harry Enten believes that one can hope for the growth of Biden’s popularity. This is due, among other things, to the fact that the Democratic candidate has succeeded in winning over more young Americans to his side than in previous months.Young people in the United States, Enten notes, are leftist and initially supported Sanders. Now Biden’s position is slightly strengthened, but the Democrats’ Achilles heel in this election will be the “lack of enthusiasm to vote” among their electorate. At the same time, young people, as Anten notes, vote for Biden not because they strongly support the Democrats, but because of their dislike for Trump. Despite the positive changes, the congress did not finally solve the problem of young voters, he said.

90,000 US elections: Joe Biden officially named Democratic presidential candidate

August 19, 2020

Photo by Getty Images

The Democratic National Convention confirms 77-year-old Joe Biden as Donald Trump’s presidential contender USA.

This is Joe Biden’s third attempt to fight for the White House. In 1988 and 2008, he did not get a nomination from the party, but in the second case he became vice president under Barack Obama. A new attempt by the elderly politician to win a seat in the White House was also on the verge of collapse in February this year.

The vote of delegates from 50 states on Tuesday evening, like the rest of the event, went online due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Next week’s Republican convention, where Donald Trump is to be nominated, will also be largely virtual.

This is the first time this has happened. It is not known whether pre-recorded performances without live audiences will generate the same uplift among voters as traditional party conventions.

According to the ratings of the global research company Nielsen, the first day of the Congress of the Democratic Party was watched by 28% fewer viewers than in 2016. The Democrats themselves claim that another 10 million people watched the work of the congress on the Internet. If these statements are confirmed, it will mean that the number of viewers turned out to be slightly higher than four years ago.

Photo author, Getty Images

Photo caption,

For the first time in history, the party congress was virtual

There are no struggles and surprises at the pre-election congresses of Democrats and Republicans. The candidates to be approved are determined in advance. These are massive festive events with music, flags, slogans and a violently reacting audience, where they praise their candidate and scold their rival.

What did the supporters say?

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Photo caption,

Michelle Obama spoke from home

As you would expect, the main point of the speeches was that the Democratic Party will best deal with all domestic and world problems.

Michelle Obama and former Democratic rival Senator Bernie Sanders of the party’s left wing opened the convention on Monday.

The speeches of former Democratic presidents Bill Clinton and 95-year-old Jimmy Carter, Secretary of State in the Barack Obama administration John Kerry and his colleague Colin Powell, who worked in the administration of Republican Bush Jr. democrat.

Bill Clinton delivered the keynote speech on “Leadership Matters” just before the vote.

“Donald Trump says we are leading the world. That’s right: we are the only major industrial economy where the unemployment rate [during the pandemic] has tripled. At this point, the Oval Office should be the command center, and it is the center of the hurricane. Chaos in everyone, “Clinton said in a five-minute speech, recorded at his home in Chapagua, New York.

Photo by Reuters

Caption,

Former Republican Colin Powell

Colin Powell said that Joe Biden shares the values ​​he embraced while growing up in the South Bronx and serving in the military.

“We need to return these values ​​to the White House,” he said.

In June, Powell, a prominent GOP supporter who spoke at several conventions, called Donald Trump a fraud and publicly endorsed Biden.

Another former Republican who joined the Democratic camp was ex-Ohio Governor John Kasich, who spoke on Monday evening.

The widow of leading Republican politician John McCain, Cindy, spoke about the friendship between her late husband and Joe Biden, but did not explicitly state her support for the latter.

Photo by Reuters

Photo caption,

One after another, Democrats criticized President Donald Trump

Former Secretary of State John Kerry focused on Donald Trump’s foreign policy.

“When our president travels abroad, this is not a mission of goodwill, but a chain of reservations and mistakes,” he said. “He spoils relations with allies and writes love letters to dictators. America deserves a president who commands respect, not ridicule.”

The candidate’s wife, Jill Biden, wrote her message while standing in front of an empty classroom at a Delaware school where she taught English in the 1990s.

At some point, her husband appeared next to her.

“Our burden is heavy and we need someone with strong shoulders,” Jill Biden said at the same time. “I know that if we trust the nation to Joe, he will do what he did for his family: unite us and make us one whole “.

Jill Biden’s speech was not as smooth as Michelle Obama’s, but it carried a genuine feeling, writes the BBC’s North American correspondent Anthony Zurker.

The organizers were clearly trying to win over the vacillating Republicans and therefore left the radical youth in the shadows, he notes.Thus, a member of the House of Representatives from New York, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, received 90 seconds to speak and devoted them entirely to presenting the views of the so-called progressive wing of the Democratic Party, without naming Joe Biden at all.

Donald Trump continues to portray his elderly rival as a puppet in the hands of the far left.

He was in Arizona on Tuesday. This was the last point in his long tour of the so-called wavering states, where the outcome of the election is largely decided.

Most polls favor Biden, but Trump has narrowed the gap in recent weeks, with almost three months left before the vote.

The Democratic convention, which was to be held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, continues on Wednesday and Thursday.

There will be speeches by the vice-presidential candidates Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and, finally, Joe Biden himself, who will say that he accepts the nomination.

It is already known that Donald Trump will record a similar speech next week at the White House, which has already given rise to accusations of using the main symbol of the presidency for his own political purposes.

90,000 US Republicans for the first time wanted to hold a pre-election congress without the press – RBK

The American Republican Party plans to hold its campaign rally in August in a closed mode for journalists for the first time in history, CNN reports.

The convention is to be held from 21 to 24 August in Charlotte, North Carolina. On it, Republicans must vote for the official nomination of the incumbent head of state, Donald Trump, as the party’s presidential candidate.

The format of the event, which is closed to the press, is associated with the epidemic of coronavirus infection. The source of the TV channel calls this decision unprecedented, but forced due to the instructions of the state governor related to social distancing.

Trump changed his position on the postponement of the US presidential election

At the same time, the meeting of the congress and the vote for Trump’s nomination are planned to be held live.