Contested Conventions?

Unsettled races could lead to politics in the raw

By G. TERRY MADONNA

And MICHAEL YOUNG

Lebanon Daily News

Sunday, December 9, 2007

It's the dream of every political junkie in America and the nightmare

of every presidential campaign: a contested convention that forces the

nomination fight beyond the first ballot. But whether hoped for or

dreaded, contested conventions are the rarest of phenomenon in modern

politics. Almost three in four Americans were not yet born the last

time either party had such a contest.

For Democrats, that was in 1952 when it took three ballots to nominate

Gov. Adlai Stevenson of Illinois for the first of what would be two

unsuccessful campaigns for the presidency. The GOP's last multiballot

convention occurred four years earlier in 1948. New York Gov. Thomas

Dewey won that one in another three-ballot contest before going on to

lose to Harry Truman.

Since 1952, no convention has gone beyond the first ballot. In fact,

only one convention has been seriously contested at all -- the

Republican Convention in 1976 when Gerald Ford barely beat Ronald

Reagan on the first ballot.

But this particular chapter of American political history may be ripe

for revision in 2008. Certainly, party-nomination rules adopted since

1968 make contested conventions unlikely. But less than a month away

from the 2008 primaries and caucuses, both major parties have multi-

candidate struggles going on -- and arguably either party, or even both

parties, could open their respective conventions without a consensus

nominee.

The GOP seems more likely to have a contested convention. New York's

Rudolph Giuliani and Massachusetts's Mitt Romney are the party's

national frontrunners, but neither controls enough early contests to

ensure nomination. In fact, one can posit plausible scenarios under

which any of three others -- McCain, Huckabee and Thompson -- could

still emerge as the nominee.

But Republicans are not unique in having a tight nomination contest.

Democrats, too, are not guaranteed a quick resolution to their

contest. Both gender and race are at play in that race, injecting

unknowns that may stretch it out. Iowa is now so close that any of

three candidates -- Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama or John Edwards --

could win there. If Clinton, once comfortably ahead there, does not

win, the race goes on at least through Feb. 5.

What would be the consequences of contested conventions? How would the

sanitized, stage-managed convention model of the last 40 years or so

fit into a new and likely raucous environment created by a convention

battle?

Probably most significant would be the implications for the

presidential nominating system. Since the 1960s, conventions have had

no meaningful role in nominating candidates. As historian James

Paterson has put it, conventions have become "scripted, anachronistic

rituals, not decision-making bodies." In their place, party primaries

and caucuses have become the de facto nomination mechanism; successful

nominees have arrived at the convention with the delegate votes

needed, or comfortably close to that needed, for a first-ballot

nomination.

But what if that doesn't happen in 2008? What if no candidate wins a

majority of the delegates before the party conventions convene in late

August and early September?

The answer is both simple and profound. If no candidate arrives with a

majority of delegates, the convention itself must determine the

winner. But who exactly will do this? And how?

In the past, contested conventions have been "brokered," which is an

elegant way of describing the hard-nosed horse trading carried on by

leading party bosses seeking a nominee. The bosses tried to settle on

a nominee before the convention. When this failed, they used multiple

ballots to test respective candidate strength. Sometimes these

contests went on for several days and dozens of ballots. The longest

was the Democratic Convention in 1924 that went 102 ballots before

nominating John W. Davis.

But a 2008-era brokered convention can't follow this script because

the parties leaders, i.e. bosses, that made it work are gone. In their

place is an array of campaigns, candidates, consultants and

constituent groups that somehow will have to figure out how to broker

a nomination in the modern era.

About the nearest example we have of how crazy it might get is the

1976 Republican Convention when Ronald Reagan tried to block Gerald

Ford's nomination by naming his vice president pick (Richard

Schweiker) before the convention. Even more bizarre was the GOP

convention four years later which briefly flirted with nominating a

former president (Ford) for vice president.

But zany ideas and party-leadership vacuums may be among the milder

problems either party would face if the nomination was unresolved by

the convention. More unsettling would be the conflict unleashed within

the party and played out on national television.

It is no coincidence that brokered conventions ended after networks

began to televise them. The 1952 convention is instructive. Actually

settled on the first ballot when Dwight Eisenhower beat Robert Taft,

the intra-party brawling that preceded the Eisenhower victory appalled

thousands who watched it on TV. Since that time, both parties try

mightily to orchestrate their convention as a political love feast --

lest they antagonize viewers who will be voters in November.

The political parties' aversion to contested conventions is not

without reason. Party slugfests at the convention often augur defeat

at the polls. Both the Democrats (1952) and the Republicans (1948)

lost after their last multiballot conventions. Similarly, the GOP lost

presidential elections in 1912 and 1940 after bitter convention

fights, while Democrats lost after multiballot conventions in 1920 and

1924. More recently, the 1968 Democratic debacle in Chicago, featuring

riots outside the convention hall and near riots inside, showed just

how difficult it is for a badly divided party to win.

How this will all play out will be clearer in the next 60 days. The

institutional factors arrayed against a brokered convention are

formidable. Moreover, both parties recognize the significant electoral

costs associated with a convention impasse: they may be great drama

but they are also bad politics.

Nevertheless, events may be in the political saddle in 2008. Neither

candidate nor party may be able to stop the political forces bearing

down on them. If so, we may see the first real convention in more than

half a century.

If we do, it's unlikely to be a particularly elevated or inspiring

affair. But it is likely to be real, unvarnished and true to life --

politics in the raw rather than today's politics on the half shell.

Modern politics could use some of that old-fashioned authenticity. It

might get it in 2008.

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Madonna is professor of public affairs at Franklin and Marshall

College. Young is managing partner of Michael Young Strategic

Research.